You could have heard a pin drop.
Johnny wiped the corners of his mouth with his forefinger and his thumb. He’d never hit a drunk, at least not when he was sober, but I think at that moment he was about to.
Jenny Rose sprang to her feet. “And maybe she didn’t expect to find a blathering, piss-sodden failure for a cousin, either! There’s a disappointment!”
Liam put the egg timer on the table with deliberate care, then turned around, swaying dangerously. “You’ll not talk to me like that. Not you!”
She put her small triangular face squarely into his. “What do you mean, ‘not you’? Me? What do you mean? Go ahead, say it! Say what you’ve never said and you’ve felt all along! Tell us how you’ve resented me my lifelong. Tell us all! Tell what a great writer you were and how nobody valued you. Nobody gave you your chance! Make sure everyone hears what you’ve always just insinuated, that the slate house would have been yours until I came along. How all of it would have been yours and Bernadette’s. How Dierdre and Peg used to say you were their clever boy until I came along. Tell all of us your childhood dream, now, Liam. We’re all listening. You’re drunk enough to say it. You can always brush it away in the morning, by saying you were pissed. The way you bully your mother. So tell how you used to plan when they all would die, you’d turn Bally Cashin into a hotel. ‘The Poets’ you wanted to change the name to, isn’t that right? How you’d hire Willy Murphy as a great chef because he’d be too shy to go out into the world and make his own living.” She turned and swept one arm out in a lofty gesture. “Tell the world how Jenny Rose, daughter of nobody knows, kept you from your secret dream just by being here. Just by existing. Don’t turn away! You’ll look at me now and you’ll hear what I say before everyone. You bullied me and everyone else with the threat of your belligerence. Tip-toeing around so we wouldn’t set you off. You made me feel worthless and cheap my whole lifelong. Even when you praised me you did it in that demeaning way you have of doing things, educated and smug so I’d feel at all times the fool. Well, I won’t anymore. You’ll not make me feel worthless one day more.” She followed his wobbling head with her brow. It was just between them. “Because I’m worth twenty a you. And we both know it, don’t we?”
He lurched toward her.
She turned and faced him, her savage little face glaring at him. She wouldn’t give way. “Ah, go on back and piss yer bed.”
Liam knocked over the egg timer then crushed it as he fell to his knees. He stayed that way for a moment, his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed in a heap. A stream of bright blood ran from his knee along the clean floor.
Jenny Rose, seeing what she’d done, looked around her. Everyone stood. Her passion spent, she covered her mouth with her hand and ran from the room. There was something in the eyes, the way she’d held firm and then in the way the juice left her eyes, like a bird, half-formed, wriggling to be free, and she’d run. Something so dreaded and familiar to me. My thoughts flew back to Johnny. What had he been trying to tell me out there on the cliff? What had he said? He hadn’t come because of me? Why, then? I pondered. And then it came to me.
Suddenly, I knew. It all happened so fast. I watched her go. I tipped my head sideways and saw myself in the mirror, the trailing rest of innocence suffused with the moment of new knowledge. It was sort of funny. One minute you don’t know and the next you do.
There sat Johnny, in the muggy light from the window, saying nothing. His hazel eyes wore an expression of, what, not bewilderment, no, it was more like he was listening, replaying a scene in his mind. He was remembering something. It was this knowing on his face that I knew nothing about, that was the brunt of the shock. And yet my heart never skipped a beat. It was like one minute it wasn’t there and the next it was.
I pulled my shawl around myself and climbed from the chair, the room. I held the wall. “Jenny Rose!” I cried. “Jenny Rose!”
She was at the top of the stairs, sitting on the top step, threading her laces into brown boots.
“Who’s your father, Jenny Rose? Do you know?”
“You think I did it, don’t you?” she hollered, unhearing.
“No.” I covered my ears. “It’s not about that.”
“Yes, you do. Look at you. You doubt me. You think I could have killed her, admit it!”
“That’s not what I’m talking about!” I stomped my boot in a pitiful gesture. I stood there. Suddenly, I thought it shouldn’t be like this, with shouting and more misunderstanding. “Come here and let me explain,” I said, hoping if I acted calmly I would be calm.
“Well, say it, then.” She came at me down the stairs. “You never trusted me.” She pushed past me, knocking me down. “Believed in me! ‘Have faith,’ you said. Indeed! That was all malarkey. You think I killed her as well!”
Before I could answer, she’d run past me out the door. Jesus, I thought, taking hold of my shoulder where I’d hit the wall, maybe she did kill her! I dropped, stung, onto the stairs.
I stayed there a while, sitting on the steps, thinking about so many things. Years ago, when Johnny’d first come into my life. Part of his permanent charm for me had been the way he’d dismissed Carmela. What was it he’d said? “Too many years workin’ vice,” he’d shrugged to explain away his lack of interest. How those words had delighted me. Sure. He’d already had her. How could I not have guessed?
“Is she in here with you?” Bernadette poked an intent face in.
“No.” I shook my head.
“She always does this,” she said bitterly. “Runs off when we need her.” She watched me, intrigued by my apparent nonchalance. “Coming back in?”
“Not now. I have to think.”
“Come on. Have a drink.”
“No.”
“You’ll have to move,” she said, annoyed. “They want to carry Liam up.”
“Wouldn’t it be simpler to keep him down there?” I snapped.
“Well,” she said. “Yes.”
Bridey stood behind her. “She’s not there?”
“No. It’s just Claire.”
Johnny pushed his way through them. They went away. He sat below me on the steps.
“She’s yours,” I said.
“That’s right,” he said.
I couldn’t believe it. I knew it, but I couldn’t believe it.
He took a deep breath. “When I told you I hadn’t come because of you, what I meant was, I came here, to Ireland, because of Jenny Rose. At least I was trying to tell you…” His voice trailed off.
I must have glowed with heat. “Does Anthony know? And Dharma?”
“No, not yet. But I’ll tell them. We’ll tell them.”
“We?” I sputtered. “There is no ‘we.’”
Bernadette came in to go up the stairs. We didn’t budge. She was about to say something but even she could feel the tension so she just climbed over us. Neither of us said anything. Finally, he said between his teeth, “First, I didn’t mean what you think I meant. It’s just you were so in a hurry to get away. I thought maybe you just wanted an excuse to get back to your Irish boyfriend.”
“Yeah, right,” I hissed.
He pitched his head back. “He’s got your picture in his hotel room.”
“You went to his hotel room!”
“I was looking for you.”
“And you thought you’d find me there? What would you have done if you had, shot the both of us! Is this what you want to talk about? My love life?” I made a snort of disgust and started to get up.
He grabbed me by my ankle.
“Did you sleep with him?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“You know, you’re right.” He let go of my ankle. “There is no us.”
Uncle Ned put his head in. “They canna find Jenny Rose!”
We stomped back into the kitchen. There was a piece of custard pie with cherries on it, black ones, sitting on the table on a flowery Oriental plate. Despite everything, my mouth began to water and I wondere
d who it was meant for.
They’d put Liam away inside, in the parlor, on the velvet couch. Not a brilliant move, I remember thinking. They should have left him on the floor. But it shows you what they were like. They provided him with his dignity even when he’d spent it.
“Well,” Mr. Truelove said peevishly to Bernadette when she came back in, “you must find her or we can’t go on.” He straightened the edges on his papers.
“Just go ahead without her then,” Bridey said. “As long as Dierdre’s here.”
“Go on, for God’s sake, Mr. Truelove,” Bernadette poked him and whispered, “get on with it!”
“I can’t do that,” he whispered back. “Sure, she’s left it all to Jenny Rose.”
There was a moment of shocked silence. Then, Dierdre stood meekly. “It’s just as well,” she said. “You know, I was always telling Peg I’d murder her.” She said it simply. “You should have heard me! I didn’t mean it, though. But it serves me right. I was afraid. I thought someone would say I’d killed her and I’d go to prison. I didn’t want to go to prison!”
“But why would anyone think you’d killed her?” Ned said. “You loved her.”
“Haloo!” Mrs. Audrey Whitetree-Murphy put her head in the door, knocking as if it were an afterthought.
“Speak of the devil,” Bernadette snorted. One thing about Bernadette: you could never say she was a phony.
Woodenly, Aunt Bridey rose and gestured her in.
Audrey Whitetree-Murphy gushed uncharacteristically. “Oh dear,” she said. “I seem to have a talent for choosing the wrong time.”
“Indeed,” Uncle Ned said contritely, “you’ll have to take us as you find us.”
“Just as I telephoned, who should pull up but my William. He’s off to London in the morning,” she fluttered. “He gave me a lift and I—”
“He’ll find Jenny Rose,” Dierdre said knowingly. “Willy’ll bring her back. He’ll know where she’s gone.”
I sat on the bench and Johnny sat beside me. All the men but Johnny stood. It was him Audrey Whitetree-Murphy chose to sit beside, in the space between the two of us.
Aunt Bridey jabbed Uncle Ned. He cleared his throat. “What I mean is, er, I’m sorry to say we can’t be offering you our hospitality just now.”
“Don’t give me a thought, then, Nathaniel. I’ll catch my breath and be on my way directly.”
Liam poked his burly head through the curtains. He grinned, all ginger and mischief. Aunt Bridey and Uncle Ned hurried him back into the parlor. You could hear them reasoning with him and he would hiccup in reply. Then came the sound of the shower rushing.
It was a little shocking to hear Uncle Ned addressed as Nathaniel. I hadn’t guessed that was his name. How lonely this silly woman must be, I remember thinking, what with all her Edwardian house and silent servant. She’s forever underfoot. But then a thought occurred to me. “And another thing.” I leaned toward Johnny. “Our marriage is invalid because you married me under false pretenses. I can get an annulment, you know.”
“Oh, that’s just like you. Give up. Run away. That’s what you’ve been silently threatening me with since the day I met you.”
“That’s a lie!” I said, but it wasn’t. I would always look away, out the window when things were tough. I’d dreamt of flight. “It appears I should have left.” I straightened my back, my teeth rigid.
“It was long before I ever met you.”
“If I’d left, you could have had what you really wanted.”
“I might have slept with your sister,” he answered me right back, “but I never knew there was a baby.”
“Oh, sure.”
The surprised face of Mrs. Audrey Whitetree-Murphy was not enough to deter us, we were both so hot we were beyond caring.
Johnny yanked on my skirt until the hem touched Mrs. Whitetree-Murphy’s leg. “When I met you, I was so crazy in love with you, I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you. I wouldn’t dare tell you I’d slept with her. You would have left me! You were always so ready to run. When your sister said to me, ‘Don’t ever tell,’ I thought fine, that’s fine with me. I told her, ‘Just don’t you ever tell.’”
The thought of the two of them keeping a secret from me all these years was enough to give me a stroke. I raised my voice, “You knew about her all these years and you never—”
“The first I ever heard of Jenny Rose was five hours before I got on the plane! Why do you think I came here?”
“Me, too,” I said, calming down. “My mother told me right before I left for the airport.”
“You ask your mother.” He trembled. “She’s the one who masterminded this whole can of worms.”
I sucked in my breath. “Very nice. Sleep with an underage girl, get her pregnant and then smugly blame her mother. Adorable.” But in my heart I thought, How could she! How could my mother?
“I beg your pardon.” Mrs. Audrey Whitetree-Murphy smoothed her skirt. “I seem to have interrupted a family project.”
Johnny gave her just a moment’s thought. “You should have thought about that before you came barging in here,” he said to her and turned right back to me. “I met your sister up at Regents Row. She didn’t look underage, let me tell you. I might have been drunk but I wasn’t that drunk. She told me she was a flight attendant, for Christ’s sake. How the hell did I know? It was a one-shot deal. She got up and left me sleeping in my car.”
“In your car!”
“Yeah. In the parking lot at the bandshell. I didn’t even know where she lived, awright? And neither of us ever wanted to see each other again. When I met you all those years later, I took one look at her and I knew I knew her from somewhere but I wasn’t even sure where! I only remembered because she was such a bitch. I remembered that. You know what she told me? The night it happened? She told me I’d ‘do.’ Do! ‘You’ll do,’ she says to me. She was using me, Claire, nothin’ else. I’m telling you the truth. If I’d known she was pregnant, I would have at least paid for the kid. You know that. You know I’d never desert my own blood.”
It was such a raw moment that I didn’t realize everyone was watching, but I must have, peripherally, because to this day I’m aware of how they were on the sides, their eyes round. I tried not to look at Johnny but you couldn’t help it. He was so rattled, the spit was coming from his mouth like a restrained rhinoceros. It was true what he said. You can’t always tell when someone’s lying but it’s a funny thing about the truth, it very often rings true.
His own blood. Jenny Rose. Our Anthony had a sister. Dharma too, for that matter.
Dierdre stood off to the side with her hands over her mouth.
“Well, we’ve got to find the girl.” Aunt Bridey came to herself first. “Who knows what she’ll do.”
“Could she hurt herself?” Johnny stood.
“Sure,” Dierdre said, still pale from the shock. “She’s that high-strung. Once she threw her paintings off the cliff.”
“When?” I asked. “When did she do that?”
“’Twas before you came.”
“What’s the difference?” Bernadette cried.
“Before Peg died?” I pursued.
“I don’t know.” Dierdre wrung her hands. “I get so confused.”
“’Twas just before, I’d say.” Bridey put a finger to her lips. “I remember thinking, every time Jenny Rose gets het up, there’s the devil to pay…”
Audrey Whitetree-Murphy cleared her throat. “You needn’t worry if that’s all it is. Though I don’t wonder you’re fearful someone would see them. Vulgar, disgraceful, ghastly business! I found them and destroyed them. Well, we did, Molly and I. They washed ashore, down by Mrs. Wooly’s cottage.”
“What’s she mean?” Dierdre asked Bridey.
Bridey went beside her sister and put a gentle arm around her. “She found the dirty drawings Jenny Rose threw off the cliff, dear, that’s all.” Tenderly, she stroked her cheek with the back of her hand. “You’re not to worry, now. No o
ne will see them.”
My heart tugged to hear Jenny Rose’s haunting work described as dirty.
“I’m more worried about the money,” Dierdre admitted, sighing. “I don’t mind so much not inheriting the lot, but, now my loom’s gone, too, what shall I do? How will we survive?”
“You’ll come move in with me,” Bridey said impulsively.
Ned and Bernadette exchanged panic-stricken looks.
I couldn’t understand how everyone could continue talking and just ignore that compelling pie.
Dierdre got up slowly and came over to Johnny. She put her saggy arms around him and hugged.
Johnny’s big arms dropped down to his sides. He didn’t know where to look.
“Come back here, Dierdre!” Bridey said, alarmed.
Dierdre wiped away a tear, squeezed Johnny’s hand and went back to stand with her sister.
Johnny might not have known how to act, but he understood that somehow, through his admitting the truth, a relationship had been formed. Italians understand all that, covenants through blood, it’s in their nature. Brusquely, he bowed to Uncle Ned’s outstretched expression of warmth. Though nothing was resolved, ranks were being drawn.
I started to reach for a cherry but was put off by the pure dislike leaking out of Bernadette’s eyes. I knew how she felt about Temple Fortune. She reached her foot out in front of her. Her dull sheen leather boots gave her the look of being armed and ready. A rake had scraped, like fingernails, across one toe. She pointed it this way and that and then she looked right at me, challenging. I wondered what she’d been up to just before all this.
“What if there really was a killer?” Mr. Truelove said suddenly, thoughtfully. “Wouldn’t it be something if it wasn’t an accident.”
“Yes,” Bridey took it right up. “I’ve been thinking so much about it.” She went around the table. “I mean, maybe the killer made a mistake. I mean, if there was a killer. Maybe he meant to kill Dierdre.”
Dierdre’s face fell into her hands. “Don’t even say it!” she cried.
“Well, you said yourself you took off unexpectedly. If even I hadn’t known!” She clutched her chest. “Anyone would have thought it would be you there in your own house. It was just because of the trip that things were different. And the trip was a surprise.”
Jenny Rose Page 24