‘How old is Susan?’
‘She is nineteen, almost twenty, apparently. A couple of years older than Eileen, I think.’
‘Under age.’ He mused a little. ‘I would advise that she gets her mother to brief a solicitor and that all negotiations with this Mr O’Sullivan of Pope’s Quay would be carried on as between two solicitors. I could give you a few names, a good case for a promising young man. After all, Mr Mulcahy had the money to build that eyesore under my nose. The widow must be quite comfortably well off, if not rich.’
‘I understand that she does not have a penny, other than the money doled out to her Monday morning, the day before her husband’s death, for the housekeeping, which was greatly reduced from the usual allowance, as her daughter Sally, who has the younger boys in Montenotte, was given three-quarters of it. Patrick, apparently, had also suggested a solicitor to the girls, but Eileen had blurted out the difficult position in which Susan and her mother found themselves in.’
‘Waiting for probate, I suppose. Surely the bank … yes, of course, the bank … well, I always say that everyone needs proper representation, but if the unfortunate woman doesn’t have a penny to her name …’ Rupert considered this. ‘I’ll fund the solicitor,’ he said suddenly. ‘I have my eye on a young man. He’s struggling to make ends meet at the moment, but he’s a clever and industrious fellow. I wouldn’t like my name to be connected, wouldn’t like to appear in the matter, though. You understand that, don’t you, Reverend Mother?’
‘Certainly,’ said the Reverend Mother sedately. She tucked her hands into her sleeves and bent her eyes down upon the black serge material. Not for the world would she embarrass Rupert by allowing him to see the gleam in her eyes. It would, she thought, be quite embarrassing for him in front of his legal friends if, after months of complaining bitterly about Mr Mulcahy’s purchase of land in front of his house, he was now seen to be acting for the man’s wife and daughter. ‘I think that I must send my bright young Eileen to see you,’ she said in conversational tones. ‘She has a great ambition to become a lawyer and a touching faith in the Republican movement to fund her studies. She’ll give you a very clear explanation of the whole situation. And I’m sure that you will find her very quick to understand anything that you might say to her. She can act as your go-between. She would probably love to see your office and all of your law books, also.’
He laughed aloud at that and he was still laughing when Lucy came into the room. Her eyes went from one to the other and she came forward to take the chair that her husband had pulled out for her.
‘I think that your cousin is trying to get me to take on as an apprentice that enterprising young lady who rescued that young fellow from the gaol, my dear. Do you remember her? The girl on the back of the motorbike? Do you remember how everyone was talking about it on the night of the law association dinner?’
‘She’s got her own motorbike now,’ said the Reverend Mother serenely. ‘And she can only become your apprentice at the establishment of a republic where education is free to all. With the optimism of the young, she thinks the new dawn is just around the corner.’ The Reverend Mother thought about all the new dawns that had been just beyond the horizon during her seventy years of life and shook her head sadly. Still, that was a futile waste of time, so she returned to the problem of poor Susan, the plain but intelligent daughter of a man who, though willing to educate his clever children well above his own level, had baulked at the extra expense of a university education for them.
Had he died because of that piece of obstinacy?
Was money, indeed, the root of all evil?
How easy was it to murder someone by picking up a heavy iron bar and hitting them across the back of the neck?
Aloud she said, ‘I’ll ask our good Dr Scher to pass on a message to her if you will be kind enough to write down a convenient time for her to call. Eileen works just around the corner from where Dr Scher lives. He is very fond of Eileen. She’s a good girl,’ said the Reverend Mother judicially. ‘And I think that she is an excellent friend, always very loyal. I think that Eileen will look after Susan. She has a very strong sense of justice and she would sympathize very much with Susan’s aspirations.’
‘And what about the brother? Fred, is that the name? The oldest of the family?’ asked Lucy. ‘Is he still in gaol? Has he been charged with the murder of his father?’
‘As far as I know, he has not been charged with murder. There was some sort of Free State/Republican trouble out in Douglas Passageway and I understand that he was arrested because of that.’ The news about Fred Mulcahy’s confession had somehow reached the newspapers. Hinted at carefully by the Cork Examiner, it had, she understood, been blazoned forth by some of the cheaper English papers where ‘The Body in the Trunk’ had been headlines a week ago. There had been trouble at the barracks about the leaking of information, Patrick had told her. Everyone guessed who it was, but nobody had been formally accused. All this Catholic/Protestant business – like treading on eggshells, had said Dr Scher who was taking a huge and very vocal enjoyment in the publicity and had joyfully informed her that one of the English newspapers had declared that the naked body of a man had been delivered in a trunk to an order of walled-in nuns who had not seen even the face of a man for forty years.
‘One has to take into account that the man was intensely focussed on business and the making of money,’ she remarked and that caused a diversion.
‘Great businessman,’ said Rupert enthusiastically. ‘Couldn’t put a foot wrong when it came to investing his money. Someone told me that.’
Probably the local bank manager. Men, within the safety of their closed circles, were incurable gossips. The Reverend Mother turned a placid face towards her host and waited for more details.
‘I thought you didn’t like him,’ said Lucy. ‘And that,’ she said behind her hand to the Reverend Mother, ‘is the exaggeration of the year. You should just have heard him! The air was blue on occasion.’
‘Oh, he was all right. All right in his place.’ Rupert waved a careless hand. ‘Nothing wrong with Shandon. He should have stayed there. He had two fine houses there, could easily have bought the third, turned them into one, got an architect, made a proper job of it, not just a hole in the attic; thrown the whole thing open, made bigger rooms downstairs. Moved the tanning yard. Of course he had done that already, but, if you think of it, that left him a large space to expand into at the back. Should have done that. I’d have recommended a good architect if he had asked me.’ Rupert drained his sherry glass, tilting his head and swallowing the last drop.
‘Anything rather than have him in our back yard,’ said Lucy.
‘Dinner is ready to be served, madam.’ The parlour maid had knocked twice and now came in.
‘Hope you have a good appetite, Reverend Mother, Lucy has been slaving over a hot stove all the afternoon.’ Rupert was now in a good mood.
The Reverend Mother smiled. Men always expected a tribute to their feeble jokes, but her mind was very busy with ideas.
Food for thought was the phrase in her mind as she moved down the hallway towards the elaborate dining room.
EIGHTEEN
W. B. Yeats
‘Life is a journey up a spiral staircase.’
Dr Scher was waiting at the top of the lane when Eileen came out of work on Friday evening. She waved happily at him. She was in a very good mood. It had been such an exciting day. She had told the whole story to the owner of the printing works and he had, to her surprise, given her permission to take the afternoon off work. The name of ‘Rupert Murphy and Partners, Solicitors,’ was a very well-known one in the city and if they were to throw any business in the way of a struggling printing business, then that would be of the greatest assistance. Where Rupert Murphy led, other solicitors would follow. And the entire city knew that solicitors had money to burn.
And so, with everyone’s blessing, she had met the great man, had been taken into his book-lined office and had accep
ted a glass of sherry, while promising not to tell the Reverend Mother. And she had told him everything that she knew about the affairs of Henry Mulcahy, deceased. Once she had got the message from Dr Scher, she had rehearsed everything in her mind and, despite the heady effects of the sherry, Mr Murphy had congratulated her on the clarity of her explanation, enquired about her ambitions, had presented her with a copy of a law book for beginners and then had sent an underling to fetch another solicitor, from further down the South Mall, by the name of Binsy. Once again she had gone through everything with this young man and Mr Murphy had not interrupted even once, just occasionally looking down at his notes, nodding and smiling. And then Mr Binsy had used Mr Murphy’s telephone to contact Mr O’Sullivan. He had made an immediate appointment for the following morning. And when Mr Binsy had departed, after effusive thanks to Mr Murphy, Eileen had another sherry and had opened her heart and her ambitions to the great man.
‘Oh, Dr Scher, you’ll never guess where I’ve been today,’ she began eagerly once she saw him. Dr Scher was always sympathetic, always interested in Eileen, ever since that time when he had dug a bullet out of her; she had expected him to be an appreciative audience, but, this time, he did not respond. And he did not say any of the things that Dr Scher normally said. She had not been surprised to see him, he lived on South Terrace, a stone’s throw away from her place of work, but she was surprised that he did not tease her about the absence of her motorbike – ‘couldn’t start that gadget again!’ he would say. ‘Ah, it knows that women shouldn’t have motorbikes.’ He didn’t even admire her dashing new scarf which she had wound around head and shoulders in a very fashionable style. He looked very tired, she thought, tired and dispirited. Dr Scher was always full of smiles when he met her, trying out silly jokes on her and paying her compliments on the most daring of her outfits. But now his face was drawn and he had a tired, defeated look on his face.
‘You’ve left your car running, Dr Scher,’ she pointed out and then felt a throb of apprehension when he did not respond. They had a running joke about his absent-mindedness.
‘Sit in it,’ he invited and she followed him to the car. He was going to drive her home, perhaps. But possibly there was something more to his invitation. He said no more, just held the door open, waited while she swung her legs in and then closed it, went around to the other side, got in and looked at her. The light was dim and the car slightly steamy, but she could see the expression on the elderly face that looked down at her and she felt a throb of apprehension.
‘Eileen, Mrs Mulcahy died in the hospital this morning,’ he said.
Eileen’s eyes widened. ‘Mrs Mulcahy. Susan’s mother.’
‘That’s right,’ he said sombrely.
‘Oh, poor Susan! First Bridie and then Mrs Mulcahy. Poor Susan,’ she said, again. ‘And her father, too! Poor, poor Susan and them all. Fred will be broken-hearted. He loved his mother. Has anyone told him?’ When he did not respond, she asked, almost fearfully, ‘What happened to her, Dr Scher?’
He took a long breath, and paused for a while before answering her. And when he spoke it was almost as though he forced himself to utter the words.
‘They received a box of chocolates through the post, that’s what Susan told me. Nothing unusual in that. Cork people are a generous lot.’
‘A box of chocolates? For both of them?’
‘No, actually, it was addressed to Susan. It so happens that she, odd girl, doesn’t like chocolates and so she handed it over to her mother. Her mother, a “sweet tooth”, according to Susan, was very pleased and she took it off to bed with her. She and Susan sleep in one of the bedrooms that are still furnished, but Susan stayed up late, so late that she decided not to disturb her mother and dozed in front of the kitchen fire when she had finished what she was doing.’
‘Poor, poor Susan.’ Eileen’s mind shied away from the horror of discovering a mother lying cold and dead. And so soon after the other tragedies in her family. ‘Is anyone with her?’
‘The poor girl was adamant that she did not want to stay in Montenotte with the rest of them. I drove her across to there. She told the news to her sister and the brothers, but then she insisted on going back. She said that she had a job to do in Shandon Street. She said that she had to clear out the office and that no one but she could do that. She wanted to go through all the account books and the bills and, well, all sorts of things. She was absolutely determined that nobody but she could do that. Though, I would suppose that, from what I know about the law, all of these things should be handled by her father’s executor, should have been handed over to him.’
‘I don’t blame her for not handing them over to Mr Richard McCarthy. I didn’t like the look of him, much. Looks like a crook to me.’ Eileen was sorry that she had said this. Dr Scher, in simultaneously negotiating a loading crane on George’s Quay and turning to look at her, almost went into the back of a lorry. Eileen decided to say no more. Susan, she had little doubt, would be able to talk about the young man and why she so frantically wanted to go through her father’s papers before they were handed over to her father’s solicitor and his executor. What about Fred, she wondered. Surely this third murder, two of which happened while he was in prison, surely that would mean he should be freed now.
But she said nothing until the Humber had struggled its way up the steep incline and stopped in front of the house in Shandon Street. The dark, navy-blue blinds were all drawn and Eileen thought with pity of the poor girl, all alone, inside the dark rooms. She didn’t get out immediately, though. It would be better for Susan if she knew all the facts before going in and so she turned to the doctor.
‘What happened to Mrs Mulcahy, Dr Scher?’
‘She was poisoned. I’m fairly sure,’ he said, spreading his hands in a gesture of defeat.
‘Poisoned!’
He nodded. ‘In all probability by the chocolates. Otherwise Susan would be ill, also. They both ate the same supper. Those chocolates that someone sent to Susan.’
‘Someone?’
‘It has a card with it. Scribbly handwriting, Susan told me. I didn’t see it myself. Inspector Cashman has it now.’
‘What did it say?’ Eileen had no great opinion of Patrick Cashman. He might have achieved a Leaving Certificate with the Christian Brothers in the North Monastery, but she had never heard that he had gained any prizes or any ‘first in all of Ireland’ as she had done in the English Literature paper. ‘It wasn’t signed, was it?’ she asked.
‘No, not signed. Said: “Thought I’d send you these” and then just initials. T.B. That’s what Susan told me.’
Eileen thought about that. It was a Cork custom to give small gifts: sweets, a cake, a bottle of whiskey, something like that to the bereaved in the week or so after a funeral. A week was considered the appropriate time – still a house of mourning, but recovery slowly beginning to arrive.
‘Did Susan or Mrs Mulcahy know anyone with the initials T.B.?’
‘Don’t know. You can ask her, yourself. Get her to talk. That will do her good. It’s those people who go around tight-lipped and wordless, those are the ones that have breakdowns a month or so later. It’s natural to cry and to talk about the person who has died. Encourage her to do that.’
‘And encourage her to nail the bastard that did that to her mother and to poor Bridie,’ said Eileen with determination.
‘Good girl,’ said Dr Scher. ‘Now out you get and I’ll find a youngster to mind my car. I’m well provided with sweets.’
There was no answer to several tentative knocks from Eileen. Perhaps Susan was out. That seemed unlikely. Had anything happened to her? For a moment she got a fright and turned back to where Dr Scher was dangling a bag of sweets in front of a couple of barefooted boys. He left them immediately he saw her face and joined her on the doorstep. She knocked again and then the knocker was taken from her and a thunder of knocks from Dr Scher caused various heads to pop out from doors and windows. He was worried, thought Eileen, goin
g back onto the pavement and looking up at the windows. There was a movement of one of the blinds in the second storey of the house and she was reassured.
‘Give her a minute,’ she murmured when she re-joined him. Susan had probably been crying and would want to wash her face and pat cold water on her eyes before meeting people. But when Susan opened the door a few minutes later, her face wore its usual pallor and her grey eyes were clear and resolute. Rigid and stiff, taking a step backwards immediately as soon as she saw Eileen, stepping right back, right against the wall, almost as though determined to avoid the hug that Eileen was about to give her. Her voice was steady and controlled – too controlled. After all, she had lost her mother that day. An odd girl. Still she might be afraid of breaking down if she allowed herself to be comforted. Eileen wished that her own mother was here. Maureen MacSweeney hugged almost everyone in a completely unselfconscious way. Eileen felt tears prick her eyes at the thought of her mother, but Susan was utterly tearless. White-faced, but dry-eyed. She held out her hand to Dr Scher and then to Eileen, sticking it straight out as though resolutely keeping a distance between them. There was a frozen look about her and she moved in a strange way, almost as though she was a large doll, or something like that. My mother would probably hug her anyway; would pat Susan’s back, would pour out a torrent of talk; this was Eileen’s thought, but somehow she could not bring herself to do that. She wondered whether Dr Scher was disappointed in her. She could see him look from her to Susan and then back to her again. Her face grew warm with embarrassment.
‘I brought you a friend to stay overnight, Susan,’ said Dr Scher. ‘I’ll let your mother know, Eileen. Don’t worry about that. And I’ll pick you up in the morning for work. Susan, too. You’ll come with me, Susan. My housekeeper …’ He looked dubiously, from one to the other, and then seemed to decide to say no more to them. He turned the knob on the front door and looked back at them.
‘Better get back to my car or those little hooligans will be climbing all over it,’ he said hastily. Even after the hall door slammed behind him, Eileen could hear his booming voice and the delighted giggles and hoarse shouts as he embarked on his favourite game of ‘catch the sweet’. And then there was a roar of the engine as he cranked up his car, more shouts and after that the street outside grew quiet again. Eileen forced herself to speak.
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