by Nina Dreyer
‘What?’
John took a cigarette from his silver case, tapped it on the edge of the desk and lit it with a crackle of his lighter. ‘I’ve been giving serious thought to what you said, about helping the dead. This time, you won’t have to find him on the other side. You’ll be helping him into death. What greater kindness could there be?’
‘You can’t be serious,’ Marion whispered.
‘I’m completely serious.’
Marion leaned on the table, pressing a hand over her mouth. The air in the room felt stale, sweet as rot.
John stood up and ground his cigarette into the ashtray. ‘Come along,’ he said, taking her arm. ‘Time’s almost up.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘To the scaffold.’
‘John,’ she lowered her voice in painful urgency, ‘we can’t let this happen without challenge. We have to help him.’
‘But we are helping him.’ John turned to her with a puzzled expression on his face. ‘We’re going to help him through death.’
He marched down the low, dark corridor. Marion followed, glancing nervously at the two prison guards who fell in step closely behind them.
They passed the condemned man’s cell.
Marion glimpsed him, slumped on is hard bunk, head bowed and hands folded, as the prison chaplain whispered urgently into his ear.
Her heart stopped.
It was Liam.
His rough blanket lay carelessly crumpled in one corner of the bunk, as if he had just tossed it off. He dragged a limp hand through his rumpled hair, over and over, glancing about and mumbling that he wanted a comb.
‘John… do you not realise who he is?’
He shrugged. ‘A convict about to be hanged. That’s all he is to me.’
Marion’s face and throat prickled with cold sweat. She thought she was going to be sick. She gritted her teeth and stepped in front of John, clawing her fingers into his lapels. ‘No, John, you can’t do this, I won’t let you, we cannot participate in the execution Eilis’ husband!’ She pressed harder on his chest, trying to push him back.
John took her wrist and gently forced her hands down, leaning over her. ‘He’s a murderer, Marion. This is the law. Nothing can be done.’
‘No,’ her voice came out in a strangled yelp, ‘it’s wrong, why can’t you see that!’
‘This is the law. There will be no last-minute pardon. Nobody can save him now. Certainly not those mewling women outside with their righteous rosaries. But you can help him, Marion.’
She pressed her hand to her forehead and breathed hard. She glanced over her shoulder, down the dark corridor, at the two grim-faced guards. One looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. The other looked drunk. She turned back to John. ‘How can you be so calm about this!’
John glanced at his watch. ‘In mere minutes, it’s going to be all over for him. No more pain, no more fear.’
‘He will have a terrible death, John, you know he will. What if he can’t embrace it?’ It was like drowning. The newly dead had to surrender to it, to stop struggling, to open their mouths and let it sink into their lungs. Few who endured hard deaths could do it.
Marion stopped dead in her track. She felt like screaming.
John caught her by the shoulder, gently stroking her arm. ‘Marion, he’s going in there without a friend in the world. You’re the only person in this entire prison who has the least bit of sympathy for him. Even though he threatened you. You’ve got such a good heart.’ He stroked her cheekbone with his thumb. ‘If you won’t go in with me, he’ll die alone in a room full of strangers who don’t care the slightest bit for him. Help him. Give him your voice and let him have his final say, let him show you the last images in his mind, let him unburden himself of his secrets and regrets. Come on. Do it for his sake.’
Marion felt herself go limp, and let John usher her through a metal door.
The room was small, much smaller than Marion had thought.
On the white-washed brick wall hung a large black crucifix. In the middle of them room stood the narrow scaffold, black-painted wooden steps leading up to a trapdoor. Over the trapdoor hung the noose.
Marion stiffened when she saw it. The executioner stood up there, leaning against the railing, sucking on a cigarette and pulling experimentally at the noose. It was not tied in coiled rope, but covered in cracking leather. It had a metal clasp, like a meat hook.
Under the trapdoor, a little to the side, stood a table and two chairs. A black blindfold lay on the table.
John eased her into the chair. ‘Close your eyes. Focus your mind. They’ll bring him now.’
A wave of blistering panic ran through her. ‘No,’ she pushed back, ‘I have to go back, I need…’
John knelt in front of her and clasped her shoulders with warm hands. ‘Think of it like this,’ he whispered, gently sweeping a lock of her hair away from her face. ‘Marion, look at me. Think of it like this. Liam is already dead. He’s already a dead man. His life stopped when he was sentenced to death.’
Marion stopped breathing.
‘They’re only going to put him out of his misery. The waiting is always the hardest part for them.’ John’s face looked bloodless in the cold light. ‘Now, help him.’
Liam was brought in, supported by the priest, who held his arm tight and whispered in his ear, tapping his chest gently with his fingers. He shuffled along, head bowed low, nodding and shivering. On either side walked the two guards.
Liam was led towards creaking wooden stairs to the scaffold while a guard held back the priest. Don’t let him see the noose, thought Marion, why are they letting him see the noose. Liam stopped half-way up the stairs and turned around for the priest.
‘Come on,’ said the guard, shoving him along. He stumbled up to the scaffold and looked around, bewildered, unsure. A rough sack was placed over his head and the guard prodded him up the steps.
‘Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,’ the priest began.
‘Close your eyes,’ said John quietly. ‘Go under now.’
Marion’s heart was hammering.
She inhaled in ragged gasps. She closed her eyes firmly and rolled them back until the bursts of red and yellow light swirled.
The darkness opened behind her. She heard the scaffold creak.
She heard Liam’s feet scuffing the edge of the scaffold.
The hanging came like a thump, so heavy that the little table shook. He was kicking. A creaking, straining sound, a moist crack.
Silence.
Marion hurled herself backwards into the swirling darkness and reached out. Her mind’s fingers came upon a broken throat, still warm, torn ligaments, and the raw smell of terror. She held out her hand, palm up. The invitation. Darkness bled into her mouth, her throat, her lungs. His death was everywhere, splintering around her. Scraps of memory. The scent of Eilis’ hair. A blue woollen sweater, a bicycle dropped on the road, front wheel still spinning. A shot, another shot. A sound somewhere in between laughter and a squeal. Ragged curses. Fleeting faces. Boots stomping. The stench of cordite.
Her mouth began watering then, bilious acid, and then the feeling of a large, cold hand rising in her throat. She gripped the edge of her chair. Don’t fight it. Breathe as much as you can. She leaned her head back, opened her mouth and felt Liam’s dead words rage through her throat.
An eternity later, guard set a tin mug of tea in front of Marion.
She wiped her eyes and shuddered. She’d been brought back to the underground office and sat down on a hard wooden chair. Someone had wrapped a coarse woollen blanket around her. She recoiled, wondering if it had covered the still living Liam as he huddled in the hours before his death. She tried to push the images away from her. His ragged, strangled screams still rang in her ears. She raised a hand to her burning throat.
John stood in the corner, under the picture of the king, with Rothman and a man in a dark grey suit. Occasionally they glanced at her. Marion heard J
ohn telling them in a low and urgent voice everything she’d said in her trance, stabbing a finger to the pages of his leather notebook. Rothman covered his mouth with his hands and turned his face away.
‘I’ll have the transcripts sent to your office later today,’ she heard John say. She looked down. A thin film had congealed over the milk in her tea. How long had she been sitting here?
‘Remarkable,’ said the man in the grey suit, ‘the colonel will be pleased with this. Onwards and upwards, eh?’
‘Not for Liam Hurlihy,’ said John. The man in the grey suit laughed, a rough, unpleasant sound. ‘Now, gentlemen,’ John nodded at Marion, ‘I should escort her home.’
Marion shivered as John tugged the blanket from her and took her arm.
She looked over her shoulder at the two men. Rothman didn’t meet her eye. The man in the grey suit leaned against the wall and stared at her as if she was some sort of Old Testament monster.
John led her out the door and down the corridors. A thin sliver of dawn shone from the high, barred windows, catching the swirling moats of dust in the cold air.
‘What have we done, John,’ she croaked. Her throat burned as if she’d been drinking bleach and acid.
He smiled. His eyes shone. ‘You’ve helped. More than you realise. Come on. Don’t think any more about it, you’re exhausted. We’ll bring you home now.’
They crossed the cavernous entrance hall at the front of the prison. A tense guard shook his keys and let them out through the large, heavy front door.
The pale dawn light stung Marion’s eyes as she emerged from the prison gate, blinking and looking around her. A row of women knelt on the curb, rosaries clasped and hands raised. ‘Murderers,’ one screamed, pointing at John and Marion, ‘murderers!’
A newspaper man with a camera stepped out in front of them.
His flash blinded Marion momentarily, as John drew her closer to his side and glared at the lens. Marion blinked and turned to the ranks of women. She wanted to hug each and every one of them, and to tell them that their prayers, their scuffed knees and rain-drenched devotion really had offered a glimmer of comfort for Liam. But that would be a lie.
‘Ignore them,’ said John brightly, pulling her along over the wet cobblestones to a waiting car. ‘They’re only making a show of themselves. You’ve made a real difference.’
Chapter Fourteen
The following afternoon was unseasonably warm. The mellow light of late autumn gilded the last quivering leaves and gleamed in window panes in Eilis’ street. The smell of moss, rotting leaves and warm stone wafted amid the rising smoke of chimneys and the gentle sea haze.
Marion knocked on Eilis’ front door, then drew back, glancing behind her. The street was abandoned, still as the gentle exhalation of the tides. She lifted her hand to knock again when door jerked open. The maid leaned her heavy frame against the door, one arm crossed over her chest. She eyed Marion up and down. ‘What do youse want?’ A shrill sneer crackled in her voice.
Marion looked over her shoulder. Her hands were shaking, her knees weak. ‘Is Mrs. Hurlihy in?’
The girl snorted. For a moment, Marion thought she was going to spit on the doorstep. Instead, she turned and lumbered into the house. Marion followed her through the hall, pulling off her hat. The hushed hallway smelled of tea, cakes, cold overcoats.
From deeper inside the house came the clink of porcelain, hushed voices, someone softly singing, but in my grief I’ll be nearer my God to thee.
Eilis appeared in the doorway. She was wrapped in a silk dressing gown the colour of coal dust. Her eyes were red and puffy. ‘You got some fucking nerve,’ she growled.
‘Who is that at the door, Eilis,’ a woman’s voice called from the parlour beyond.
‘Nobody.’ Eilis narrowed her eyes. ‘Nobody at all.’
Marion brushed past the maid, her heart pounding, ‘forgive me, Eilis, I only-’
Eilis drew back, arching her shoulders. ‘What do you think you’re doing here,’ she asked. Her voice was strangled. She turned to the maid. ‘You, clear off.’ The maid turned and left with a satisfied smirk on her face.
‘I am so, so sorry for your loss,’ Marion managed, her throat burning.
‘I asked you what you think you’re doing here?’ Eilis dug her nails into the silken sleeves of her dressing gown.
‘Liam. I’m so sorry-’
‘What right do you have, coming here, after what you did?’ Eilis drew herself up and stared at Marion with eyes like burn blisters.
‘Let me explain. Please-’
Eilis turned on her heel and stumbled into her front parlour.
Marion followed her.
‘Get out of my house.’ Eilis stood with her back to Marion, gasping for air, leaning on the table. Marion drew nearer, glancing over the familiar room, the Persian rugs, the blue porcelain tea set, the Tarot cards. ‘Please, I have to tell you…’
Eilis spun around, a crumpled newspaper in her hand. ‘Have you seen this, Marion? Have you? You’re a disgrace.’ She slapped the newspaper into Marion’s chest.
Marion took it and unfolded it with trembling hands.
The front page was splattered with news of Liam’s execution. In the left-hand column was a narrow strip of a photograph. She recognised John’s face, sharply captured in granular black. Next to him, her own face, bewildered, lips parted, blinking in the flash light.
‘Spiritualists in aid at final death scene,’ Eilis shouted, repeating the headline. ‘What the hell do think you’re playing at!’ She tore the newspaper out of Marion’s unresisting hands and flung it into the fireplace, scattering a whirlwind of ash, ‘what the fuck have you done, you sick,’ she panted, breathless, her face beetroot-red, ‘you sick…’
Eilis’ legs buckled. Marion caught her arms and gently pulled her up. She tried to draw her close in a hug, but Eilis shoved her back, and Marion hit her hip on the hard edge of the side table. Tears stung in her eyes. She blinked rapidly.
‘I wanted to help, Eilis, please, I thought…’ She closed her eyes tightly, but all she saw was the inside of that hanging room, the trapdoor, the black staircase, the leather-cased noose with the cruel metal hook. The terror and desolation of the execution chamber.
‘Oh, help, you were only helping, is that what John told you? And you just,’ Eilis crinkled her nose, ‘swallowed. You were trying to impress John, is that it? Oh, he’ll cast you aside in the blink of an eye, you stupid cow! You’ve thrown away everything just to impress fucking John Kilcoyne! Do you understand what you’ve done?’ Tears trickled down her cheek, leaving a gleaming trail in her face powder. ‘Do you? My mother-in-law mother has read this, Marion. An account of how two spiritualists interfered with the death of her son. Mrs. Campion has read it. My parish priest. Winifred. Liz. Everybody’s read it.’ She gulped back a sob. ‘And you did this,’ she bared her teeth and grasped Marion’s collar, ‘you did this to help John, with the British looking on, tell me, did you give them that little speech about how much you hate ze English, did you? God, you are such a two-faced little snake!’
‘That was never-’
‘But worst of all,’ Eilis let go of her collar wiped her face on her silk sleeve, ‘worst of all, I feel so stupid. I thought you were my friend. I thought you were a good, kind and caring woman. Not,’ she flung her hand at the burning newspaper in the fireplace, ‘not this craven vulture, who’d prey on the execution,’ she raised her voice to a thin wail, ‘of my own husband.’
Marion’s words stuck in her throat. She opened and closed her hands, wiping them on the front of her coat as though they were stained. The thump of the hanging rang in her ears, the sickening crunch of bone and ligament. She pressed a hand to her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said through her fingers.
‘Sorry,’ Eilis sobbed, ‘you’re not sorry, you’re sick in the head. Sick. Now get out of my house.’
‘Please, let me explain…’
‘No. Not another word out of your twisted mouth
.’ Eilis stepped closer, her hand raised, one finger pointing to heaven.
‘Listen to me…’
She saw Eilis raise her arm, and the slap came hard and sudden. She stumbled back, clutching her stinging face.
‘Get out of my house,’ Eilis wailed, her voice like a saw in wood, ‘piss off back to the fucking gutter you came from!’
Marion turned and half-fell, half-stumbled down the hallway towards the front door.
Eilis’ steps followed close behind.
Marion ducked when something cold dug into her scalp. It was Eilis fingers, digging into her hair. She raised her hands, trying to free herself, but Eilis twisted and pulled.
Eilis was inches from her face. The familiar scent of her hair, night-blooming flowers. ‘If I ever see you again, I’ll break your face for you,’ she hissed. ‘I’m ashamed I ever called you my friend.’ Eilis released her grip on her hair and shoved her. ‘You’d better watch yourself from now on, Marion, I’m in no bloody mood to protect you any longer.’
Marion stumbled out the door, twisting her ankle on the stone step.
The front door slammed behind her.
She floundered down the garden path, past the three shivering birches and onto the main road. She swept a hand over her eyes and looked down. Dust from the prison corridors still stained her boot.
John sauntered into Sid’s old office at the Salon with a hard knot of excitement in his chest. He hadn’t slept a wink. That look on Lt. Rothman’ face alone, when John had pressed his notes from the hanging seance into his limp hand… He sighed happily and looked around. It wasn’t a large room, but it was handsome, with walls the colour of lamb’s blood and antique oak furniture. Golden afternoon light flooded in through the vine-cluttered windows panes and gleamed dully on the rows of bookcases.
John closed the door behind him, lingering for a moment, picturing Sid in his sagging armchair by the window, holding forth on the merits of Madam Blavatsky. The scent of his pipe still hung in the air.
John loosened his tie and sat down behind Sid’s vast old desk. He smoothed his palms over it. Until recently, John had been relegated to a small blue Georgian desk under a north-facing window. He lit a cigarette and surveyed the remains of Sid’s reign still scattered on the desk.