The Love of a Lifetime

by Mary Fitzgerald

  There it was, in a nutshell. He wanted to be like our Father, that perfect stern man who lived by a set of standards that anyone would want to achieve. In his naivety, how had Billy managed to twist that perfect code? Mother was right. He was ill.

  I swallowed. “Is Mary Phoenix in there?”

  He nodded.

  “Who else?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember.” He had started to cry now, standing in the rain, his tears mingling with the drizzle and I wanted to go over and take him in my arms. We were brothers who had grown up used to sticking up for each other, why, this was the person who had saved me from drowning. The surrogate Father, generous and always loving.

  The gun felt heavy and I let it dangle from my hand. I could stop now and pretend that I’d never seen what was in the cave. What would it matter if I took stones and stuffed them into the hole and covered up the crimes that my poor mad brother had committed? Would it bring any one of them back to life? No, it wouldn’t.

  But I looked again towards the cave and thought about the sad disintegrating mess that had once been a beautiful young girl. I thought of the pile of bones that spoke of other murdered women, lost for ever to their families. I knew that I couldn’t ignore it. He would never stop, couldn’t and what he had done was wicked. Nothing he said or I thought, could get away from that.

  “I have to tell the police,” I said.

  “No.” His weeping had stopped but he put up his hands to cover his face. When he spoke again, his words were muffled but colder and more calculating. “Think about Mother,” he said, carefully, “it will kill her.”

  It would, I knew that. Her pride in the family was fierce and Billy’s arrest and subsequent trial would be more than she could bear. Nevertheless… I had made up my mind. I would lead him down the hillside and phone Fred Darlington. Let someone else take over the responsibility.

  “I can’t help that,” I said. “I’m turning you in. You deserve nothing from anyone.” I thought again of that poor girl and the others. “You deserve to hang.”

  He nodded at that and lowered his hands. He looked submissive for the first time and I felt desperately sorry for him again. When I spoke again it was to soften the blow.

  “It won’t come to that,” I said sympathetically. “You’ll be sent to an asylum. We’ll visit you, Mother and I.”

  But suddenly he looked bigger and a low growl rumbled as he took in a deep shuddering breath. His chest expanded and as those huge shoulders straightened, he was that Billy of old: broad, strong and fit for the hardest task. I looked down at his hands curling into huge fists and I tightened my hold on the gun, trying to keep it steady. How on earth was I going to get him down the mountain?

  I jerked the gun towards the rabbit trail. “Get moving!” I ordered.

  He remained still, staring at me with a face so twisted and horrible that I hardly recognised him.

  “I should have done for Elizabeth,” he said with a voice so cold and full of menace that my guts squirmed and turned to water.

  “She was the biggest tart of them all.” He moved his shoulders, flexing the muscles in his upper arms and balancing restlessly on the balls of his feet. He was getting ready to rush me.

  “I might yet,” he gave a short mirthless laugh. “I know where she lives in Ireland. I’ve always known. One of these days I’ll go over there and get her. I’ll make her suffer for her filthy ways.”

  His eyes glittered in the fading light and his body loomed large in the mist swirling up from the heather. All I could think of was the ogre he had promised would rush out of the cave and get me.

  “I can shut her up,” he was saying, his voice getting higher and more excited, “teach her to lie there, showing me her naked and disgusting body. I’ll take her by the neck and…”

  I shot him then. The revolver aimed at his chest almost without my knowing and my finger squeezed the trigger as easily as if I was back in the jungle and a bastard Jap had suddenly appeared out of the trees.

  The noise echoed all round the mountain and then died away while I stood there, shaking, looking down at my brother who lay on the ground a few yards away from me. He wasn’t dead. I’d missed his heart, shot him high in the chest but it was bad and blood was seeping quickly through his shirt and jacket.

  He stared up at me. His face had returned to normal, the twisted sneering mouth straight and that mad glittering look had gone. He didn’t even seem to be shocked or in pain and, as I gazed down, all I saw was my Father’s eyes, praising me for collecting the laburnum blossoms. And my heart broke.

  “Oh God,” I cried kneeling down beside him and pulling aside his shirt to look at the neat bullet hole from where a bright red stream trickled. “Oh, God. What have I done?”

  He coughed and a froth of blood bubbled out of his mouth. “Dick,” he gasped, his eyes fixed full into my face.

  “What, Billy? What is it?” I cried and put my head close to his lips to catch the faint words.

  “You are the best brother a man ever had, our Dick,” he whispered through the bubbles and tiny flecks of his blood spattered onto my face. “I’ve been right proud of you.”

  I took him in my arms then and held him. My brother, the person who had loved me all my life and cared for me better than any father, was bleeding to death on this bitter mountainside and I was responsible. And you know, no matter how tight and close I wrapped him in my arms, his body was leaden and cold and I could smell the life draining out of him.

  He whispered again. “Finish it, lad. You wouldn’t leave an animal like this.”

  It was the right thing to do, but I wept as I shot his brains out.

  Mother was waiting for me in the yard, anxious and flustered, her fat little hands winding in and out of her apron.

  “Where have you been?” she cried, “I can’t find Billy.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m going out.”

  “To look for him?”

  I didn’t answer but left immediately, jumping into the car and driving along dark and deserted roads until I reached the village. No-one was about; it was Christmas night and people were together in their homes enjoying the festivities. Happy respectable families who lived normal, contented lives and would never know the horror I had just experienced.

  The Police House was full of light and through the undrawn curtains I could see Fred, Miranda and their daughters, sitting round their dining room table. Fred was wearing a paper hat and laughing as he held up a sparkling glass towards his smiling womenfolk. Firelight danced in the grate, throwing a warm and rosy glow over the scene and as I watched, the youngest daughter got up from her chair and ran round to give her father a hug. It was a glorious scene of peaceful family life and here was I about to spoil it.

  But I had to.

  “What is it?” said Fred when he came to the door and saw my dishevelled and bloodied state. “Come inside.”

  “No!” I said, terrified that the women might see. “You must come with me.”

  Thank God for Fred. He was a man who understood the meaning of urgency. Without a word he turned and went back inside his house. I heard him exchange some words with Miranda and the girls and moments later he reappeared, paper hat gone and now sensibly dressed in mackintosh and cap. He was carrying a large torch. He nodded his head towards the torch. “I’ll expect we’ll need this.”

  “Yes.” I didn’t stop to wonder why he knew that but got into the driving seat of my car and tapped my fingers anxiously on the steering wheel, as I waited for him to get in beside me.

  The torch wasn’t necessary on the mountain. The cloud and mist had blown away to the east and a penny moon eagerly lit our way up the track. No words were spoken between us and when I stopped, Fred stopped behind me and waited patiently until I stepped aside and indicated Billy’s body.

  He lay where I’d left him. His one remaining eye was open and staring up at the moon. I knew it was my brother, but I didn’t feel that the Billy I had known was this sad pi
ece of humanity. This was a body, not a person.

  “I shot him,” I said abruptly. I had to say it. It had been bursting out of my lips since the moment I knocked at Fred’s door and couldn’t be kept to myself any longer. And then, in case he didn’t recognise the corpse of my brother, I added. “It’s our Billy.”

  “Yes,” said Fred, kneeling down beside him. “I know.”

  “I had to do it. You go in that cave and see what’s in there. It was me or the hangman.”

  He got up then and, switching on the torch, went into the cave. This was the brave Fred of old. The one who bested our Billy and showed him that he wasn’t afraid, but I was still the scared little brother and hung around outside, watching new clouds flit across the moon.

  “Answers a lot of questions,” was all Fred said when he emerged from the darkness but I realised it wasn’t only the ghostly light of the moon that made his face look stark and white. He handed me the torch while he brought out his handkerchief to wipe his face.

  “Mary Phoenix is one of them,” I muttered. “He told me that. He couldn’t remember the others.”

  “Jesus, God,” Fred groaned, “He was mad. I told you years ago.”

  “I know that, now.”

  We stood together beside my brother’s body, facing that dank cave, which contained the bodies of women he had murdered. Could it be that there were other sad corpses in undiscovered places? I thought back over the long years and wondered.

  Fred got out a packet of cigarettes, handed one to me and then walked a little distance away from me to smoke his. I watched him as he sat down on a rock in front of the cave and I conjectured what the next steps would be. Would Fred produce handcuffs from his coat pocket and secure me before leading me down the hillside? Or would he read me my rights, like I’d seen at the picture houses. I waited, submissive. I knew what I deserved.

  “Right.” Fred ground out his cigarette onto the rock and tossed the stub into the heather. He stood up and took off his Mackintosh and jacket. And as I watched on that Christmas evening I was astonished to see him pull down his braces and unbutton his trousers. He stood on that cold hillside in his shirt and under drawers and looked angrily at me.

  “Don’t just stand there. Pick up his shoulders, Dick, and I’ll get his legs.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Get on with it.”

  I bent and took my brother under the arms while Fred lifted his legs and, between us, we carried him to the cave. It was hard getting in, squeezing past the big rock, but we did it and laid my brother on the ground beside the other bodies. He lay on his side, so the last vision I had of him was of bloody mess of bone and brain and that has lingered with me always.

  It took Fred and me hours to block up the hole, stumbling about on that hill to find stones of a suitable size. We did it better, I think, than Billy had done, first arranging the rocks and then packing them tight with earth and pebbles. Finally, I tore small branches of rowan off the few trees that grew up there and laid them over our work. One of those branches took root, because I saw it green the next year when I was there. I could never stay away for long, I had to keep reminding myself of what I’d done.

  I stopped outside his house after I’d driven back into the village. He sat quiet in his seat for a while, not speaking and I sat too. I was drained and sick.

  “We’ll never speak of this, do you hear me?” His voice was full of authority.

  I nodded.

  “I mean it,” he said. “Not to your mother, nor your sister nor me to Miranda or the girls. And we’ll never speak of it to each other. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I said and I found myself weeping.

  I never have until now, Sharon. I told Mother that Billy had gone away and that is what the whole village believed. But she knew. She washed my clothes and comforted me in the nights that followed when tears came unbidden as we sat beside the fire. But I never did tell her.

  God forgive me. I had to do it. It would have brought such shame on the family and Mother couldn’t have borne it. I couldn’t have borne it. But he was my brother and I loved him.”

  Richard. Listen to me, it’s all right. I understand. I think you are the bravest man I ever knew. Rest now. It’s over. You’ve told me and we won’t speak of it again. Nothing you’ve said changes what I feel for you. I love you, do you hear me? Just as always.”

  “Do you, Elizabeth? Do you? Oh I hoped you would. Let’s go out now. Come for a walk on the hill. Come on, Mother doesn’t need you in the dairy now. Billy knows where the buzzards are nesting, let’s go and see. Come on…”

  Epilogue:

  Richard died six weeks ago on the day after he told me the ending of his story. I was with him, holding his hand and Thomas wandered in and out all morning, bringing bits and pieces from the garden to try and make Richard smile. It worked once when Thomas brought in a couple of bits of greenish-blue eggshell that he’d found beneath the plum tree.

  “That’s a bullfinch egg, son,” Richard whispered as Thomas held the shells up to show him. He gave one of his grins but then he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  He died in the afternoon soon after Nurse had given him his injection. I didn’t stop her because I knew that he was ready. As she rolled up his pyjama sleeve he turned his face towards me and stared into my eyes. There were no words. We didn’t need any. I nodded because I knew what he was saying and smiled my goodbye. I think that my face was the last thing he saw before his eyes closed and he went to sleep. I hope that made him happy.

  Afterwards, Donald Clewes came to the house to certify the death.

  “They only gave him six months, at the hospital, when he was diagnosed,” he said when I took him into the kitchen for a cup of tea. “He managed fourteen. That was you. You kept him going.”

  I shrugged. Maybe. I don’t know. It was more likely wanting to get to the end of his story that spurred him on.

  “What now? Where will you go?”

  That was when I cried. I felt as though my world had crashed down all around me and I no idea how to escape from the wreckage.

  “Come on, Sharon,” said Donald and clumsily put his arm around my shoulder. “After all, you can’t say that you weren’t expecting it. I was.”

  The idiot. If he thought that would make me feel better then he couldn’t have been more wrong. It only confirmed what a second-class person he was.

  “Go away,” I said through my tears. “Leave me alone.”

  It was Thomas who coped with me best. He understood that I was overcome with grief for he felt it too. He dropped his little carroty head onto my shoulder and sobbed. So we held each other and that was a comfort. After a bit he asked if he could go and tell Jason.

  “He should know,” he said, wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve, looking so serious and grown up.

  “Yes,” I said, calming myself for his sake. “And I’ll phone Andrew Jones.”

  The following week, Andrew and I flew to Ireland with Richard’s body. When we arrived at the little white church in the corner of a small village, the minister was waiting for us with two or three of his parishioners. I don’t know why they came, maybe they went to every funeral, but in a way I was glad they were there. It made Richard’s burial less of a hurried, impersonal business than it might have been.

  The grave containing Elizabeth and John had been opened and Richard was finally laid to rest beside the two people he loved more than anyone else in the world. Andrew gave my hand a squeeze as the minister intoned the words, ‘earth to earth, dust to dust,’ but I was fine. My crying was all done. Now I was happy that we had done what Richard had requested.

  I read the stone above the grave, Elizabeth Nugent Wilde born July 30 1904, died March 10 1966. Devoted Mother of John Edward born March 30 1933 who departed this world September 23 1943. May they rest in everlasting peace.

  Richard has arranged for his epigram on the stone. It will read, Richard Colenso Wilde born December 20 1905 and
died April 29 2001. Loving Father of John Edward and faithful until death to Elizabeth

  I like those words. They’re simple but they have meaning. For me, knowing the whole story, they are perfect.

  “You loved him, didn’t you?” asked Andrew as we walked away from the cemetery down the quiet village road. In front of us were the iron railings and the fancy gates of Ballinbar House, Elizabeth’s home, which I have recently been told is now mine. It is grand in every sense of the word. No wonder Richard teased Elizabeth about it. I have no idea yet what I’ll do with it. But then all the consequences of Richard’s death have left me stunned and almost unable to take them in.

  “Sharon,” Andrew’s voice broke into my thoughts again.

  “Yes? What?”

  “You loved him?”

  “Yes.”

  I did. Not like a father or a grandfather but I loved him like a lover. I could never tell anyone, they wouldn’t understand, but what I felt for that old man was closer to true love than I have ever felt for any man. Being with him was heaven. Oh, I know he was old and sick and I was aware of how frail he was as well as anyone else, but listening to his story and writing down all his adventures, I could see beyond the shell of a man he had become. I loved the person inside. The kind, faithful and passionate man that he was.

  “Yes, I loved him,” I repeated to Andrew and took his arm as we strolled up the long drive towards the fine Georgian mansion ahead.

  That last tape hasn’t been transcribed. I let Andrew listen to it and he sat with his hands steepled under his chin until the end.

  “Poor Richard,” he said. “That explains a lot.”

  “Should I write it down?”

  He was quiet while he thought about it. “It’s up to you,” he said, finally. “If you transcribe it, then it could be open to the world and Richard’s reputation would be destroyed. But if you keep it to yourself, then you will have to live with the knowledge for the rest of your life. Like he did. Not the same, of course, but perhaps a heavy burden to bear, considering that he’s your benefactor.”