A Gruesome Discovery

by Cora Harrison

  And, of course, she admitted to herself, Shandon Street was of interest to her at the moment. She had done as much as she could do for now, she told herself with a backward look at her school. All was quiet and orderly within its walls. Hungry children had been fed, warmed, and the naked clothed and that was all that she could do for the moment. She made a firm resolution to be very polite to the bishop and to listen with interest to his various suggestions for the efficient running of a school. She might even find some way of avoiding the ceremonial and lengthy lunch provided for all.

  Interesting place, Shandon, she thought, as she escaped from the bishop’s palace a few hours later. The lunch, on this occasion, had been a new-fashioned buffet which made things so much easier, and quicker. She had swallowed a cup of tea, nibbled a ham sandwich, tastefully shorn of its crusts – where did the crusts go, she had wondered – and then she had tasted a biscuit, adroitly swiped a plateful of silver-paper-wrapped chocolates into her purse from under the nose of a hungry Christian Brother – the needs of her children were greater than his; she had mentally wafted the message to the man, eyeing his large, well-fed stomach and then she had slipped out of a door. Hopefully, she would not be missed at the bishop’s closing address and the prayer for guidance.

  The day had turned fine after the morning’s rain. The Shandon bells on St Anne’s Church played merrily and the clock showed that it was barely two in the afternoon. Or at least one face of the clock showed two o’clock and the others showed, 2:03, 2:04 and 2:07. ‘The four-faced liar’, the clock was nicknamed in Cork, but whichever face was right, she had plenty of time. The school day did not end until four and so there was no rush about getting back to the convent ready to meet and greet those mothers who turned up to collect their children and, usually, to get some advice and help from the Reverend Mother.

  She would walk, she decided. The sun had come out and the pavements, although frighteningly steep when one looked down, were steaming and almost dry in places. She would go slowly, keeping close to the wall, and she would look around her. She greeted the verger who was sharing a few sweets with some of the children on their way home for the midday break. A nice man, she thought. The name, Mr Sweetman, suited him. What a shame that he and his wife had no living children. He would have made a very good father. She smiled and raised a hand, but did not interrupt his chat with the children. One of his great pleasures in a dull and dreary life.

  She saw the sign for the Mulcahy business almost immediately, only about a hundred yards down from the cathedral. The two handsome gabled houses belonging to the dead man, built in the era of George IV, she guessed, fronted onto the street. And the workplace, the hide and skin business, its large yard and outbuildings had been behind the houses. She hesitated for a moment and then crossed over the road. The yard was only a few paces down a side lane and the sign was clearly visible from the street. ‘Henry Mulcahy & Sons’. Rather touching, she thought. Like Mr Dombey, the man had wanted to found a dynasty. She walked down the lane and stood for a moment at the gate looking around the yard. It was scrubbed clean, and a strong smell of Jeyes Fluid met her nostrils. And then a familiar figure came out from one of the outhouses, carrying a pail.

  ‘Good afternoon, Bridie,’ said the Reverend Mother. She was faintly embarrassed to be caught peeping in through the gate, but Bridie gave a cry of delight and came forward instantly, dropping her pail in the middle of the yard.

  ‘Reverend Mother,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘You’ve come for the condolences. The Missus will be ever so pleased.’

  And it was, of course, a reasonable excuse. Ever since the announcement of the death in this morning’s Cork Examiner, troops of people, led by compassion, neighbourliness, or sheer curiosity would have been streaming into the place to give their condolences to the sorrowing widow and children. The Reverend Mother allowed herself to be led around to the front of the houses. The front door of one of them had its knocker decorated with a large mourning wreath. Bridie led her towards this one, turned the knob and ushered her in through an empty hallway and into the front room of the house.

  The small bare room here had been used as an office when the Mulcahys and their twelve children had occupied the two joined Georgian houses. That was plain. There was a desk, a few wooden chairs, a telephone and behind it, covering the whole back wall of the room, was an elaborate, though roughly made, oak cabinet, containing innumerable small drawers. The widow sat on the chair behind the desk, a girl beside her and two tall boys, younger brothers of Fred, she reckoned, were standing awkwardly behind their mother’s chair. There was no sign of the rest of the family, probably the younger boys were at school, or being looked after by the other sister, but perched on the corner of the desk was a small man, thickset, his face elongated by a spade-shaped beard, several shades lighter than his bushy eyebrows. When the door opened, he looked up alertly and then leaned across the desk to say something to Mrs Mulcahy.

  The woman looked dead tired. The Reverend Mother eyed the queue ahead of her, all waiting to shake the hand of the grieving widow and felt contrite that she was going to add to the poor woman’s troubles. She could see the strain on the drawn face as Mrs Mulcahy tried to reply to the conventional expressions of sympathy. Bridie had slipped away once she had escorted the Reverend Mother inside the door. There had been an immediate movement, to her embarrassment, as the polite people of Shandon Street moved aside and encouraged the holy nun to go to the top of the queue.

  ‘This is the Reverend Mother from St Mary’s of the Isle, Mam.’ It was one of the daughters. Susan, she guessed. Susan’s voice was very composed, her manner respectful, but assured. Reputedly a very clever girl, she had attended St Vincent’s Convent in Shandon and had won prizes when she sat the Intermediate Certificate. According to Bridie, this girl Susan had wanted to go on with her education but her father wouldn’t hear of her becoming a bluestocking and told her that there was enough to do in the house and she could help her mother with the younger children. Had that rankled? The girl looked composed, but who knew what she felt like underneath. Did she mourn her father’s death? Or was there always a measure of relief when the hand of a tyrant, even a benevolent tyrant, is removed?

  The Reverend Mother delivered her condolences. The unfortunate wife was at the end of her tether, eyes circled with black, hands tightly clenched, to restrain the tremor. It was merciful to be short and conventional.

  ‘You’re very good. Thank you for coming.’ The phrases came mechanically to the woman’s lips. Then she turned with an effort to the man who had got off the desk and was now standing beside her chair, waiting expectantly.

  ‘This is Mr McCarthy, my husband’s friend, Reverend Mother.’

  ‘The family appreciate your presence, Reverend Mother.’ His tone was hushed and his voice slightly husky. He spoke as though he were an important member of the family. Perhaps he was a cousin, or a nephew. Odd that Bridie had never mentioned his name amongst the tons of information that she poured out about the Mulcahy family. A person one would find difficult to ignore, she thought, with a quick look at the heavy jaw and the determined china blue eyes. ‘We’re all very grateful to you for coming,’ he finished with a quick glance around the room, his beard jutting out aggressively. And obediently a small murmur rose up in response.

  ‘You must come and have a cup of tea, Reverend Mother.’ Susan rose to her feet almost before her mother had finished speaking. The Reverend Mother made her farewell as quickly as possible and followed the girl out to the hallway.

  ‘Your poor mother,’ she said, once the door of the office closed behind them. ‘Thank God that she has such good children to give her support. I suppose that Sally is looking after the younger boys.’

  The girl looked slightly startled at the Reverend Mother’s knowledge of her family and so she added quickly, ‘I remember you in your pram, the two of you. Bridie used to take you visiting the convent.’ Did the girl know about Bridie, she wondered. She had a keen intelligent f
ace. Even as toddlers, it was easy to pick out Susan from Sally. Susan was the one that was always grimly investigating everything within reach while the prettier twin, Sally, was content to be handed from one nun to another, beaming placidly.

  ‘That’s right, Sally is looking after them. They’re over in the new house. There’s no room here for them, no furniture much even in this place, now,’ said the girl. There was a defensive note in her voice. ‘We’ll be having the burial tomorrow morning. The police said that we could. They’ll all come over for that. And then they’ll have to get back to school, all of them.’

  A good half an hour’s walk from Montenotte to Faranferris School in Shandon, she reckoned, and some of the boys must still be quite young – probably about six or seven, the youngest ones, thought the Reverend Mother. It would be hard for the boys to do that walk twice in every day, but then the Mulcahy children would not have been brought up to expect an easy life. She just nodded her head in agreement, though. Susan wanted no more conversation; that was easy to be seen. She opened the door to the back room where Bridie stood awkwardly, waiting for guests with a teapot in her hand, and Susan ushered the Reverend Mother in and then closed the door firmly on her.

  The house was almost devoid of furniture. There was nothing here but a small, rather rickety, table with a huge metal teapot and a large plateful of sandwiches. Some coarse earthenware cups, many of them without saucers, were set out on the table, but it didn’t look as though anyone had availed of the hospitality that had been got ready for the sympathizers.

  ‘Sit down, Reverend Mother,’ said Bridie. Nervously she dusted off the scratched paint on the window sill and then stood awkwardly, poised with teapot in hand. ‘Sorry not to have somewhere nice for you to sit, Reverend Mother. We’re in a state here. Nearly all of the furniture has been taken off to the auctioneer’s place, just left us a couple of beds and this old table. It’s just been the Missus, and Susan and myself left here. The other house has been sold. They used to join, you know. They joined in the attics. The children used to run between them. The fun that they used to have, chasing each other from house to house!’ Bridie’s nervous, white face softened into a smile at the memory. ‘It’s all boarded up now that the one of them has been sold,’ she said regretfully. ‘You’ll have a cup of tea, Reverend Mother, and a sandwich, won’t you?’

  ‘Nothing for me, thank you, Bridie,’ said the Reverend Mother decisively. ‘I’ve just been having lunch with the bishop.’

  ‘You’d have the best of everything, there,’ said Bridie respectfully. And, then, almost as though she could not resist it, she said anxiously, ‘I suppose there was a lot of talk about our trouble up there at the palace.’

  ‘Yes,’ admitted the Reverend Mother. ‘I did hear it mentioned. Everyone was very sorry for the children and for Mrs Mulcahy, of course.’ And there had been lively debate on who among his business rivals might, to quote one of the Christian Brothers, have bumped him off, and she did believe that Mr McCarthy’s name had been mentioned. By all accounts, Mr Mulcahy had been a match for any of them, though. ‘A tough man’ had said the headmaster of Farranferris School. ‘You wouldn’t believe it, Reverend Mother, but he tried to get me to give him a cut-rate on the school fees on the grounds that he would be sending me ten boys. As if I could sell them or something! “Should be cheaper by the dozen, Father,” he kept saying to me, with that laugh of his.’

  ‘Everyone had great praise for the children,’ she said to Bridie. ‘All of them very clever, so I have heard. Their teachers think a lot of them.’

  Bridie’s thin, lined face lit up. There was a glow in her eyes and she straightened herself. Despite the blackened teeth, her smile was lovely. ‘God bless them, the cleverest children in the world,’ she said. ‘Nothing is any trouble for them. Good children, too, just a bit of mischief from time to time, but very good children.’

  ‘But Fred was always your favourite, though; still is, I’m sure, isn’t he, Bridie?’ The nuns in the convent used to tease Bridie about this, so the Reverend Mother thought that she would resurrect the old joke. The smile immediately faded from the woman’s face and a hunted, worried look replaced it.

  ‘I haven’t had sight nor sound of him for months,’ she said defensively. ‘Never have a chance to say a word to him these days.’ She took the lid off the aluminium teapot and stirred its contents vigorously. Then seizing a large knife, she started to chop the sandwiches in half, reducing them to a manageable size.

  ‘He never comes near this place,’ she said and the tone of her voice was still anxious and defensive. The Reverend Mother’s heart sank. Bridie never could look you in the face and tell a lie.

  ‘So Fred wasn’t here on Tuesday, then, was he?’

  ‘No, not at all, no, not a sight of him.’ Now the knife chopped the sandwiches into dainty quarters and the eyes were fixed resolutely on the table.

  ‘Wouldn’t his father have welcomed a visit, do you think, Bridie? Were father and son at odds with each other?’

  ‘Not a bit of it.’ Bridie spoke with emphasis, but she still avoided the Reverend Mother’s eyes. The sandwiches had been reduced to the smallest size possible, but now she started busily divesting them of their crusts. In the background, footsteps kept crossing the hallway and the front door opened and was closed again every few minutes. The Reverend Mother felt rather guilty. Surely these sandwiches and those pints of tea in the large teapot should be offered to the sympathizers. Perhaps she was blocking access to the hospitality. She got to her feet and went towards the door.

  ‘You must come to see us, soon, Bridie,’ she said. ‘Sister Bernadette was saying recently that you’ve become quite a stranger. And I’d like to give you a message for Fred, Bridie; I know that he always comes to you when he is in trouble.’ That, of course, had been said by Bridie many years ago, but the memory of it was there and the woman flushed a rosy red and then paled. The Reverend Mother left a moment for that that to sink in and then said earnestly, ‘Tell him from me that the truth is always the straightest way in the end. Tell him, that, Bridie, won’t you?’

  Bridie said nothing. She looked down and then looked up. There were tears in her eyes. Nothing more could be said, though, and there was a slightly relieved look on Bridie’s face as the Reverend Mother left.

  A thin woman in a black shawl was coming out of the front room and she rushed to open the front door for the Reverend Mother, accompanying her down the steep pavement once they were out of doors, grabbing her arm in a protective fashion when she wobbled a little.

  ‘Take little small steps, Reverend Mother,’ she advised. ‘That’s the way to do it. See the way that I do it. I’ve lived on Shandon Street all of my life. Was born here, married here and I suppose I’ll be waked and buried here. Shandon Street people get good muscles in the backs of their legs, so they say.’

  ‘I suppose that you know the Mulcahy family well,’ said the Reverend Mother taking her new acquaintance’s advice. The short steps did make her feel more secure going down this dreadfully steep hill. She was glad, though, for the steadying arm.

  ‘Well, yes, and no. They kept themselves to themselves, the Mulcahy family. Very hard workers. The children, too. If they weren’t doing their homework, they’d be grabbed to do something in the yard, so they didn’t stint on the homework, easier than battering those skins with iron bars. Too young for hard work like that. My husband, God rest his soul, used to say that. You wouldn’t see the Mulcahy boys much out in the streets or down the lanes, with the other boys larking around gas poles, “waxing a gazer” we call it, Reverend Mother. They’d be indoors and at their books. Very sad about young Fred. He was a great boy for the study, so they say.’

  ‘He joined the Republicans, didn’t he?’ The Reverend Mother knew that there must always be two sides to a gossipy conversation.

  ‘That’s right, he did. Terrible trouble with his father, there was. He wasn’t the sort of man who’d give advice and then tell a lad that he was old enou
gh to make up his own mind. No, a dreadful row there was; up and down the banks, it was, I’ll tell you that, Reverend Mother and not a word of a lie. Picked up a stick and hit the boy around the shoulders. You could have heard them at the bottom of Shandon Street. Well, they do say that Fred never spoke to his father again. Came to see his mother from time to time. Awful fond of her, he was. He’d come on fair days when he knew that his father would be out of the way. And, of course, once they cleared the furniture out of the last of the houses his father went off to live in the posh new house, in Montenotte, if you please, took Sally and the younger boys and so Fred knew he was safe then. Came and gave a hand to his mother and Susan, and poor old Bridie, of course.’