Too Close For Comfort

by Niamh O'Connor

  ‘Congratulations, darling,’ Right Guard said, kissing her on both cheeks. ‘You’re a genius. You should see the figures for advertising.’

  ‘Absolutely inspired,’ Nivea said. ‘Where did you get the idea?’

  She turned on them. ‘A little girl was snatched from a cornfield, raped – and murdered because an animal like Roy Whiting thought that way he wouldn’t have to go back to prison. People have a right to know who their neighbours are. That’s what Sarah’s Law is all about.’

  They were at the fifth.

  ‘Shocking,’ Right Guard said. ‘I’ve got an eight-year-old. I wouldn’t be responsible for what I’d do if I got my hands on him. Hanging and quartering is too good for them.’

  The doors opened. She stepped out. The copyboy followed, hiding his smile behind the pile of newsprint.

  13

  AT THE NURSES’ station, Liz was refusing to accept what the nurse with the sorry smile was trying to imply.

  ‘If you like, we can have a counsellor come and have a word with him,’ the nurse had just said.

  Liz simply wanted to know where Derek was, and could have done without the pseudo-psychological assessment thrown in, thank you very much. Ellen used to specialize in that, too.

  ‘Dump him,’ she used to say all the time, ‘he’s a mentaller.’

  Liz hadn’t stood for it back then, either.

  ‘Why would Derek need to talk to a counsellor?’ she asked.

  The nurse raised an eyebrow, like Liz was missing something. ‘It’s a clear stretch of road.’

  Liz shook her head, muttering, ‘No way,’ under her breath. Derek was under a lot of pressure, and she was prepared to take her fair share of the blame for that, but he would never do that to her – take his own life – not when he knew what she’d been through after losing Ellen. He’d seen first-hand what it meant for someone he loved to have to shoulder even one tragedy in a lifetime.

  ‘He doesn’t need a counsellor,’ she told the nurse.

  ‘Well, if you do change your mind, you know where I am. And if you can convince him to stay overnight that would help, too. We’ve a room available in private, but he’s refusing to stay.’

  ‘Private?’ Liz presumed Derek’s Voluntary Health Insurance subscription had lapsed with the family policy when they’d stopped meeting the repayments. Foreign holidays, gym membership and even health insurance all belonged to the good times – before Irish taxpayers were held liable for fat-cat bank managers’ bad debts, and the word ‘lifestyle’ got supplanted by ‘existence’.

  The nurse sensed Liz bristling. ‘He’s got to stay under observation because although he hasn’t broken anything, he’s concussed. Why don’t you sit down, my love? You’ve had a nasty shock.’

  Liz swallowed the lump in her throat. A small show of kindness, and she was all set to dissolve. She felt a pang of guilt. Maybe Derek had picked up on how she’d been willing him to hurry up this morning, maybe he’d been speeding and that was the reason for the crash.

  She made her way down the corridor, scanning each room in the ward, too upset to wait for directions. It only took a minute to find Derek, anyway. He was sitting on a bed just inside one of the doors, pulling his jeans on under one of those skimpy hospital robes that tied at the back. The sight of his face – covered in cuts and bruises – made her breath catch in her throat.

  ‘I thought you fancied pulling a sickie this morning, but this might be taking it to an extreme,’ she said, attempting a joke.

  Derek looked up from under his dark, bushy eyebrows, but not at her. He buttoned his jeans, and flopped back against the pillows. The whites of his eyes were yellowish against the starched white covers.

  ‘Sorry. I’m so sorry, love.’

  ‘What are you sorry for, you big galoot?’ She kissed his face, and then sat on the edge of the bed, reaching for one of his callused hands. She loved him, and had to give him the benefit of the doubt. She wasn’t about to give up on her marriage even if, worst-case scenario, she found out he’d had a fling with Amanda. It made sense if that was the reason why their argument had become so heated. She and Derek would get through this. Life had thrown a lot worse shit at them. Kill himself? Derek? Not in a million years.

  ‘The pick-up’s a write-off,’ he replied, wincing.

  ‘Cars can be replaced.’ She tried to rub the back of his hand, but her watch snagged on a cannula. ‘Why’s this thingy here? Are they giving you antibiotics?’

  Before Ellen had disappeared, when things like wanting to be something had mattered, Liz had dreamed of becoming a nurse. She’d been like a sponge when it came to soaking up medical information. If they were pumping him with intravenous antibiotics, he might have an infection as a result of an internal bleed.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  He shook his head and shrugged.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Near Buglers.’

  She pictured the spot. It didn’t make sense. Derek was a brilliant driver. They’d grown up on the same council estate in Tallaght; he’d lived just a few doors down. He’d spent his childhood taking cars apart, putting them back together and being unable to resist taking them for spins when he shouldn’t. That was another big reason she wanted to give Conor the best start in life.

  ‘Maybe you fell asleep at the wheel. You’ve been working too hard. You looked wrecked this morning. I’ll head home and pack you an overnight bag in a bit. You’ll be getting your own room. Pyjamas, toothbrush, that kind of thing …’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m not staying. I’ve got to get back to work.’

  ‘You can’t work. They’ll just have to manage without you until you’re well.’

  His tone changed. ‘If we lose the house, it won’t matter if Conor gets the scholarship. He’s only eligible for the place if we live in their catchment area.’

  Liz could have recited the wording of the small print on the form, but she wasn’t going to rub Derek’s nose in it. Not here, and definitely not now. ‘They’re talking about debt forgiveness for people who can’t make their mortgage repayments.’

  ‘It’ll never happen,’ Derek said. ‘What about the people who’ve already lost homes – would the banks give them back? Or the ones who are still paying – would they be allowed to stop?’

  ‘I’ll ring the bank, see if I can’t get them to postpone a few payments till you’re back on your feet. I’ll tell them you were almost …’ She stopped short again.

  ‘Don’t ring the bank under any circumstances,’ Derek blurted, sounding rankled. He sighed straight away, like he regretted saying it.

  Liz couldn’t put a comment like that down to concussion. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  A nurse came over before Liz could pursue it. ‘We’ve got other patients we have to consider,’ the nurse said. ‘Technically, visiting hours are not until this evening.’

  ‘I’ll only be another minute,’ Liz promised.

  The nurse looked unconvinced, but left them to it.

  After waiting for her to go, Liz reached into her pocket and drew out the blue scarf. ‘It was in my car.’

  He stared.

  ‘It’s Amanda’s. How did it get there?’ she asked.

  ‘I …’

  ‘If people put two and two together …’

  ‘Love …’

  Liz cast a nod in the direction of the nurse. ‘Something like this puts everything in perspective,’ she said through a gritted jaw. ‘We have to put Conor’s needs first.’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘That’s exactly what I tried to tell Amanda. The stupid cow wouldn’t listen.’

  14

  ‘WHAT?’ LIZ ASKED icily.

  Derek scanned the ward, throwing dagger looks at an old man in a dressing gown who was shuffling towards an empty bed, wheeling a drip as he moved. Liz barely breathed while she waited for Derek to get on with it. The nurse passed by again and tapped her watch pointedly, catching Liz’
s eye.

  ‘Is Conor OK?’ Derek asked, shooting a swift glance at the nurse to remind Liz that they had to be careful.

  Liz went along with the change of subject, nodding. ‘Conor’s good.’

  Derek looked worried, and tried to hide it.

  ‘Why?’ Liz asked.

  ‘I just thought he was acting a bit weird this morning.’

  She wanted to get back to the other conversation but she couldn’t help being drawn into this one. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He just seemed a bit funny.’

  ‘What kind of funny?’

  ‘You know, like he’d something on his mind funny, as against his usual odd-as-two-left-boots funny?’

  Liz folded her arms. ‘He’s not odd, he’s—’

  ‘Yeah,’ Derek cut her off. He never liked her talking about Conor’s condition.

  ‘It’s probably the thing with his books,’ Liz said, monitoring the nurse. Two patients away now, still too close. ‘I was thinking that maybe one of the other students in the class might be trying to sabotage his results.’

  ‘No,’ Derek said. ‘That would be evil.’

  ‘It exists,’ Liz said. After a pause she added, ‘There are people who would kill for a place in that school. Remember Tonya Harding, the ice-skater whose husband had Nancy Kerrigan whacked in the leg so she could win?’

  ‘Vaguely,’ Derek answered, craning his neck to make sure the nurse had moved out of earshot.

  ‘You were saying?’ Liz hissed, getting him back on track.

  He breathed heavily through his nostrils. ‘I have to get everything out in the open. There are things I haven’t told you about Ellen, because I love you so much, Liz, and I was too scared of losing you before. But now I’m all out of options. At the start I thought I was doing the right thing not telling you what happened to her … why I …’ He stopped, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. ‘But because of what happened to Amanda, there’s no way around it. Before I tell you any more, you have to believe that everything I did back then, I did for you, and the only reason I’m digging the past up now and coming clean about what I did is for Conor’s sake.’

  Liz was completely floored. Her chest felt like it was about to cave in. She’d been trying to keep the past buried for the same reason. A throb struck up at the back of her head. ‘What did you do?’

  His eyes filled. ‘I went to Amanda to ask for her help. I wanted some legal advice. I needed to find out what would happen if the gardaí got new information that helped them to find Ellen … where someone would stand in relation to a prosecution after so much time had passed. I thought I could trust her because … remember that job I did for her that she never paid for?’

  Liz nodded and shook her head. She was so confused. ‘What new information? How would you know where to find Ellen’s body?’

  ‘Yes … no … just listen for a sec. Because Amanda never paid me for the job, I felt that I wasn’t asking for much. That’s why I felt it was OK to confide in her, to tell her what happened all those years ago, to ask her for advice. But she was a complete bitch, Liz. She wouldn’t give me the time of day, stopped taking my calls. I dropped in to talk to her and told her if she was going to be like that she could pay me what she owed me, and she went berserk. She started threatening to tell you, and I said some things back because I knew she was having an affair with a plumber I’d worked with. She started whacking me. It was everything I could do to restrain her. I know it’s wrong to speak ill of the dead, but she had it coming …’

  Liz’s hands were so tightly clenched that her fingernails were drawing blood. She felt confused, tired in her bones. Her throat started to close; she could feel her entire life disintegrating.

  Derek became sheepish. ‘I’m so sorry about everything, love. All I ever wanted was to protect you …’

  ‘What new information about Ellen? Protect me and Conor from what?’ she asked louder.

  A squeaking sound over her shoulder made her almost jump out of her skin. The nurse was back with a medicine trolley, asking Derek if he needed more painkillers.

  ‘I promise only another minute,’ Liz said, making a quick cross on her heart.

  The nurse shook her head. ‘No. It’s not fair on the others. You’ll have to leave now.’

  Liz stood slowly. The nurse moved to the next patient.

  ‘You’ve had a bad accident,’ Liz told Derek.

  ‘I’m not losing it. Is that what you think?’

  ‘I think if you say any of this to anyone else it’s going to hurt our son. I need time to think.’ Liz turned and didn’t look back. Once in the corridor she rushed to the nearest loo and vomited. After flushing the toilet she went outside to splash her face with water, and tried to slow her thoughts down. All these years she had believed everything Derek had told her, when everyone else – her own mother and father, the public and the police – considered him the prime suspect for what had happened to Ellen. By backing him, she’d helped him to keep up the pretence that he was a regular guy. Now she’d discovered she had no idea who her husband really was.

  Think, think, think, she told herself. What was there to think about? a little voice inside her head answered. At the very least, Derek was a liar. At worst, the man she’d slept alongside for twenty years, the man she’d thought she knew better than anyone, the man who’d fathered her child, was a monster.

  It felt like her mind was playing tricks. She wondered if it was possible that any minute now she’d hear her name called and would open her eyes to find someone in a white coat with a bright light shining behind them telling her she’d just had the mother of all nervous breakdowns.

  But as impossible as it was to fathom, to believe, she had to accept the facts. Derek had wanted to confess. She couldn’t take it in – that the same hands that had comforted her could have taken her only sister’s life, and disposed of her body. That the lips she’d kissed every day for the last twenty years had told lies that had ruined her entire family’s life. Liz took a deep breath. She was going to have to go back. She had to hear him say it, not hint it. She wanted to watch his face when he said he’d murdered Ellen, and then and only then would she believe it.

  But by the time she’d established that the coast was clear and the nurse had moved off the ward, Liz returned to find Derek’s bed empty. The only sign he’d been there at all was his mobile phone, which was still on his bedside locker. Liz grabbed it and stared. Derek never went anywhere without his mobile. He never forgot it, he never lost it, it was always charged, and if he couldn’t answer, he always got back to her as soon as he could. Derek knew exactly how much Liz panicked when she couldn’t contact him. Keeping in touch was a must after what she’d been through with Ellen. By leaving his phone, he might as well have left her a note saying that she was on her own from now on.

  15

  LIZ FELT QUEASY the entire bus journey from the hospital to the meat-packing plant on the Naas Road where Derek worked. As if things weren’t bad enough, having had the nurses trawl the hospital for any sign of her husband to no avail, her car had refused to start in the hospital car park. She’d had to knock all the extras off her insurance policy a couple of years back, so dialling the AA to bail her out hadn’t been an option. Covered in a lather of stress-induced sweat, Liz had continued on foot, hurrying out to leafy Nutley Road. At the T-junction with embassy-belt Merrion Road five minutes later, she’d caught the 47 bus.

  Fifteen minutes after abandoning her car, she’d steadied herself using the bars on the back of the head rests and walked to the front of the bus, pressing the red bell with her thumb so the driver would pull in on Pearse Street. It had taken her another ten minutes to walk to George’s Quay, via the Docklands. By 1.45 p.m., she’d stepped on to the 141, leaving the new Samuel Beckett Bridge over the Liffey – the one in the Lotto ads that looked like a harp on its side – and the tilting-pint-glass conference centre behind her on the final leg of her journey to the Naas Road.

  Liz didn�
��t know if Derek had gone to Mervyn’s Meats, but it was the only place she could think of through her pounding head to start looking for him. She was all over the shop: her hands clammy, her stomach in a knot. The shock to her system had left her completely drained, and she swung from disbelief to horror. It was like her head and heart had gone to war. Her head told her it all made sense now. She was having flashbacks to her parents’ warnings. They’d never trusted Derek, had taken an instant dislike to him, to the point where he wasn’t allowed to cross the threshold of their house. Even Ellen had had the jitters around him, and had never approved. Had something happened, even back then, that Ellen hadn’t wanted to mention? she wondered.

  Guilt lodged itself as a block in the bottom of Liz’s throat. Had she really helped her sister’s killer get away with the crime for all these years? When she thought of how the police, and the press, had also taken a stand, and how she had arrogantly written off their judgements, along with everybody else’s, so she could maintain the egotistical lie to herself – that Derek loved her and that Derek couldn’t harm a fly – she couldn’t breathe.

  A voice inside her head kept playing devil’s advocate. How could her husband have had a whole other life she’d known nothing about? How could she have been living with a complete stranger? Maybe Derek had had such a bad knock to the head he’d been raving. Maybe paranoia was a side effect of concussion. Maybe he was the one having a nervous breakdown.

  Or maybe she was in denial, she decided. She took his phone out of her pocket and started to do something she would previously have thought beneath her – scrolling through his texts – hacking into her husband’s phone like some kind of bunny-boiling female. But she had to find out what was going on. There were only two texts, both unopened. The first one said, ‘The game’s up, dickhead. Amanda said you tried to blackmail her and that you assaulted her. Now she’s dead. Convenient that. We know who you are. Where are you?’