The Rosary Garden

by Nicola White

  Joe had an arm round Ali’s shoulders, was trying to turn her round and get her into the house. The last thing she saw was Dr Nolan lifting one end of the blankets, revealing a flash of Joan’s face, white and sharp-nosed, nesting in brown curls. Father Philbin was making the sign of the cross in the air above her. Joe gave Ali a final nudge into the hallway and pulled the door closed between them.

  She swayed in the middle of the hall, a strange ringing in her ears. Maybe she would lie down here on the tiles, the diamonds of red and black that were so familiar. She folded herself down to the floor. The tiles were so cold. She shifted so that her back was against a wall.

  Here was where the box had lain. Ma had taken it from her arms and bent down to put it right here. Ali moved her hand over the tiles as if they retained the print of it.

  What have you got here, love? Ma in a crouch, lifting the lid. Ma putting her hand to the grubby towel, then falling back like she’d been bitten, thumping her back against the stair post. Aunt Una coming up the kitchen passage, bearing down on her like a storm. So fierce that Ali had covered her face against the blows she thought were coming. Feeling the spittle on her hands as Una shouted close to her head: What in Christ’s name have you done? Everybody looking at her; Una grabbing her wrist in her iron fingers, pulling at her. Nobody stopping her doing it. Ma looking away. Ashamed, it seemed.

  The shifting guilt that always lurked inside her. This was the place it had come from. The front door opened and Joe came to stand over her, reached down his hand.

  ‘Get up now, we’ll go and have a drop of tea.’

  Brendan was already sitting at the table, still as a statue. Ali took a chair opposite. His eyes were red-rimmed, but dry. Joe ran the tap, rinsed out the teapot and mugs, bustling and clattering.

  ‘Did you see her at the dance?’ Ali kept her voice low.

  Brendan shook his head.

  They heard the front door open and Una came down to the kitchen. She looked as if she had somehow lost weight since the day before, a scrawny, strained look to her face and neck. She went to the scullery to take her jacket off, still in Ali’s line of sight.

  ‘Father Philbin and Kevin are coming here for a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘Maybe some of the Guards too.’

  She wiped down the table, brought out good cups. Ali watched her and thought of the terrifying aunt of her memory. Una was solemn and frail in the wake of this horror; hard to believe she ever spat curses or lifted a hand to anyone.

  Father Philbin blessed the air as he entered the kitchen. Kevin Lawlor, the neighbour, was behind him, cap in hand, his expression caught between embarrassment and woe, but also, Ali could see, the edge of excitement too. He was the man of the hour, the one with the story to tell. He met their eyes boldly, even as he received commiserations from Una.

  The tea cooled while Father Philbin led them in a series of prayers – an ‘Our Father’, the Confiteor and one she didn’t recognise that began: Out of the depths I cry to thee, O Lord … Out of the depths, where Joan had been.

  The others blessed themselves as he finished, and Una passed round a plate of biscuits.

  ‘Take some sugar in your tea, Kevin,’ she said, ‘for the shock.’

  It was all the cue he needed.

  ‘I don’t know how I’ll ever get over it, missus. The dog was whingeing to get out, and I couldn’t sleep for her noise. So I took her out the back of the house and felt a bit brighter myself for the morning air, so we went on along to the river. It was a beautiful morning.’

  He shook his head, took a sup from his cup.

  ‘It was a rag of pink I thought I saw, just near the bank. But when I got up close I could see it was a woman in a pink blouse, lying stretched out by the side of the water. Her curls were blowing in the wind. The sun must’ve dried them.

  ‘When I was about ten yards away I recognised who it was and, God forgive me, my first thought was that it was typical mad behaviour to be sunbathing half in, half out of the water. At that hour. But she didn’t wake when I shouted at her, and when I got as close as we are now, there was no mistaking the life had gone from her. Her shoulders had caught on a branch under the surface. She didn’t look too bad, though. Not bloated or anything …’

  ‘Jesus …’ said Brendan.

  ‘You know, I don’t think the sight of it will ever leave me. The Gardaí said she was probably carried down the river from the town, or even as far up as Ennisbridge.’

  Ali clamped her jaw against the confession that rose in her throat, that wanted to surge from her mouth, spilling her guilt across the cherries printed on the old oilcloth. Joan was her responsibility. She had signed the book at Damascus House for her. People would know that soon enough.

  The back door slammed and Davy came in. His hair was tousled and the collar of his pyjamas stuck out of the neck of his jumper.

  ‘A Garda came to the bungalow and told me. Why didn’t you come and get me? It’s mad, isn’t it?’ And he gave a little high laugh. ‘Unreal, man.’

  ‘Say hello to Father Philbin, Davy,’ said Una.

  ‘Father. Kevin. Unreal, eh?’

  ‘’Twas me that found her,’ said Kevin. ‘She looked very peaceful – like your one – Ophelia.’ Kevin spread his hands wide on the table. Davy shook his head quickly, like he was trying to flick something out of his hair. Ali wondered if he was still drunk.

  Father Philbin said he needed to go to Ennisbridge, to comfort Joan’s parents, and that Kevin should come with him. He turned in the doorway to give Brendan a hard look and said that perhaps the marquee dances had got out of hand. Brendan didn’t bother to answer.

  ‘Sit down and have some tea,’ Una said to Davy, but he ignored her and leaned against the sink, twisting a tea towel between his hands. Uncle Joe sighed loudly several times.

  Ali thought of Ivor. He was looking for Joan when they parted. Maybe he had never found her. Not only had she made Joan angry, she had taken away the person who protected her.

  Joe and Brendan started to swap theories. Joan had been drunk. Joan had been suicidal. Joan had been unlucky, tripped and fell.

  ‘Do you remember,’ Joe said to Una, ‘when those two boys from Galway drowned in Lough Dreena. Went for a midnight swim. Both of them drunk, as it turned out. Drink makes you think strange things of yourself, gives you the inclination for adventures, but takes away your judgement.’

  ‘Joan wouldn’t have gone for a swim,’ said Ali. ‘She didn’t know how.’

  Everyone looked at her.

  ‘You barely know her,’ said Una.

  ‘I saw her at the dance. I don’t think she was drunk, either.’

  ‘Don’t say you met her at the dance,’ said Una, ‘or the police will want to talk to you. You’ve had enough of that, surely.’

  ‘Una,’ said Davy, flicking his towel in her direction, ‘don’t work yourself up. She was a depressive – cracked, you used to say. At least she won’t be bothering you any more, eh?’

  ‘Steady on,’ said Joe.

  ‘You should have more respect,’ said Una, her colour rising with her voice.

  ‘Should I?’

  The look that passed between Davy and Una struck Ali as being very strange, part of some larger falling-out that she hadn’t noticed.

  The doorbell trilled, breaking the tension. Joe went to answer it. Una got up to put the kettle on once more. It shook in her grip. They heard mumbled voices, and Joe returned.

  ‘There are a couple of Gardaí here.’

  Una banged the kettle onto the range. ‘Show them down.’

  ‘They want to talk to Ali.’

  It was going to come out now. How she had taken Joan out of the hospital, stirred up the past and abandoned her.

  A tall Garda dipped his head as he entered the kitchen, removed his hat. Ali was confused. It was one of the Guards from Rathmines. She had met him in the Rosary Garden. How could he be investigating Joan’s death?

  ‘We can give you a few minutes to pack a bag, but w
e have to hurry,’ he said. ‘We need to get back to Dublin before teatime.’

  ‘You can’t take her away,’ said Joe. ‘Something happened here this morning – she’s very upset.’

  ‘I’m afraid our thing trumps yours for the moment, Mr Devane, we need her in Dublin.’ He turned to Ali. ‘You’re not under arrest, but Detective Swan would be obliged if you’d come back with us to help with our enquiries.’

  ‘Is it the baby?’

  The Guard’s expression changed, shifting from formality to a kind of regretful softness.

  ‘Yes, Ali,’ he said gently, ‘it’s the baby.’

  As they drove away from Buleen, she asked the policeman if they had arrested somebody, but he said he couldn’t tell her anything. He suggested she take a nap meanwhile, and Ali obediently curled up on the back seat, her seething head cushioned on her hastily packed rucksack.

  ‘This is where I was told to bring you.’

  The evening sun glinted off lines of parked cars and spread a mellow light across the old stone of St Enda’s hospital. Ali had woken up as the car stopped. Her tongue felt sticky and she had a headache.

  ‘But it’s a hospital.’

  She thought they would take her back to the station at Rathmines, or maybe home.

  ‘This is where Detective Swan said. He’s probably inside.’

  He helped her out of the car and shoved the rucksack under his arm. A bunch of nurses smoking by the hospital entrance gawked. Inside the panelled foyer a young woman in a belted mac stood waiting. Beyond, through glass doors, Ali could see the over-lit glare of the hospital, trolleys and oxygen tanks parked against the walls of a long corridor.

  The woman nodded at the Garda. She had short black hair and quick expressions. She smiled at Ali.

  ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Gina Considine. DI Swan asked me to meet you. Good trip? Everything okay?’

  Ali nodded back automatically, though nothing was okay.

  The woman’s handshake was strong, not exactly a shake, but a steady, held grip as if she was trying to communicate trustworthiness through her skin.

  ‘I’m sorry about all this,’ she said. ‘There’s no other way to be sure.’

  ‘Be sure of what?’

  Detective Considine glanced at the policeman, who gave a brief shake of his head in response.

  ‘Thanks, Liam,’ she said. ‘I’ll take it from here.’

  She took Ali’s arm in a firm hold and led her into the hospital.

  ‘I’m sorry nobody explained things. It’s a bit sensitive.’

  Ali wanted to explain about Joan, to blurt out everything that had happened, to make this woman understand that she wasn’t up to whatever it was she was asking.

  ‘We’ve got to a stage in our investigation where we need to clear certain people from our enquiries. The only way to do that is to ask them to give a blood sample and have a quick examination.’

  ‘Right. But why do you need me?’

  ‘You’re someone we need to clear,’ said the detective, looking at her intently, something like a warning in her eyes.

  A yelp jumped from Ali’s mouth. ‘It wasn’t my baby!’

  The detective held her gaze, let a moment pass before speaking. ‘I’m sure that’s what the doctor will say.’

  ‘Someone I know killed herself last night.’

  Considine frowned. ‘Well – I’m sorry to hear that. We can’t force you to cooperate right now, but if you don’t, we’ll have to bring you here again tomorrow. It will happen, Ali, so easier just to get it over with, eh?’

  She glanced past Ali, as if waiting for someone to appear in the corridor.

  ‘Is my mother here?’

  ‘No, though I did speak to her this morning,’ said Considine. ‘The thing is – your mother says she doesn’t know where you were at the time of the child’s murder. Your friend Carmen has told us you were in the convent grounds. And you managed to discover the body in a place that you had no real business being in.’

  ‘I didn’t – Fitz did.’

  ‘There’s other things too.’

  It was only the two of them in the big hallway, but Ali felt crowded. She hadn’t had the chance to have that bath. The sweat and alcohol and smoke fumes of the night before would still be clinging to her skin. She was in no state to be peered at, or poked at or whatever. Despite the sleep in the car she felt frayed, like she might cry if someone said ‘Boo’ to her. She needed to be home; she needed to be clean and alone, and have a think about what had happened to Joan.

  ‘I can see you’re upset,’ said Considine.

  Ali bit the inside of her cheek hard to stop the tears from coming.

  ‘Would it be you that examines me?’ she asked.

  ‘No, we have a proper doctor for that.’

  Ali didn’t recall saying yes, but neither did she say no, and so she found herself in a cold room, sitting on a paper sheet on an examination bench while a nurse in a plastic apron opened cupboards and set out implements. She had been told to take off her ‘lower things’, so she removed her jeans and pants and then her socks, because they looked odd on their own. She was glad that her T-shirt was long, and pulled at the hem of it with both hands until it was tented over her knees.

  The nurse approached with a syringe and asked Ali to look over at the door. The detective’s face hovered there, framed in a small glass window. Ali felt the prick on the inside of her elbow, and the sensation of a needle stretching the underside of her skin. She started to feel wobbly, and was aware that the nurse kept shooting her hard little looks. Once, she heard her click her tongue against her teeth.

  ‘Sorry?’ said Ali.

  ‘Nothing. Doctor’s on his way.’

  Ali was staring at a metal bin, fixing on it as a still point that would save her from nausea, when the door swung open and the doctor from The Late Late Show walked in, Dr Beasley, a determined smile on his face. This couldn’t be right, thought Ali, her queasiness banished by the shock of seeing him here, the dawning realisation of what an examination might entail. She reached out for her folded clothes, but the nurse was already carrying them to the far side of the room.

  ‘Hello, Alison. Quite a different setting we meet in this evening.’ He pulled on some thin rubber gloves that the nurse handed him. ‘Did you enjoy your television experience?’

  She remembered him stuttering and irritable, under Mary’s barrage.

  ‘Not really.’

  He worked the gloves down between his fingers. ‘I’m surprised. If you would be so good as to lie back and relax?’

  ‘Wait,’ said Ali. ‘I need to talk to that policewoman.’ But Considine had vanished from the doorway.

  ‘It’s seven o’clock in the evening, I’m sure we’d all like to go home soon.’

  ‘I don’t think I want to do this right now. I don’t feel well.’

  ‘It won’t take long. The Gardaí need the information to do their job, that’s all. Nothing personal.’ He pulled over a curtain, blocking out her view of the door.

  She was lying back now, following the nurse’s orders to put her feet flat on the bench, to bend her knees. She felt her will give way, a falling sensation.

  Beasley stood to one side of the bench, level with her waist. He kneaded her stomach and asked her about sex. How often she had it. Not if.

  ‘Not often. Three times is all.’ Beasley raised his eyebrows and waited, as if another answer might follow. Ali said nothing.

  ‘Okay, so when was the last time you had sex?’

  A flash of herself rolling around in the van, Ivor laughing and reaching for her hips. She couldn’t say last night.

  ‘A while ago – a few months ago.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  He moved down the bench, asked her to part her legs a bit. She felt his cold rubber fingers on her, poking. She looked right into the bulb of the big lamp that hung over her until black blobs obscured her vision. The nurse handed him something metallic. As he put it inside her, she felt it as ang
ular, cold as ice. The blood drained from her head and saliva pooled in her mouth. Then he did something that made it push her apart inside. It wasn’t sore exactly, but it felt wrong, like something that happens just before something very painful. Her whole body felt tense as bone. The stretch became an ache.

  She glanced down and saw that he was leaning right over her with a torch, looking inside her, his brows clamped in concentration. Minutes seemed to pass.

  ‘Please …’ Ali said.

  In answer, he raised one rubber-clad finger, indicating she should wait a moment, never taking his eyes from his task.

  Ali looked beyond the light to the white tiles that covered the ceiling, the galaxy of tiny holes that perforated each of them. She imagined she could float up and crawl into one of those small holes, hide away in the darkness there.

  She was aware of something scraping her inside, of sticks and swabs being dropped into plastic bags and vials.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Her voice came out shaky.

  Dr Beasley sighed elaborately. ‘Alison, if I do a full range of tests now, the police will have all they need and you won’t have to come back to me.’

  They left her lying there, a cold draught across her naked thighs, while they went to the other side of the room and muttered together with their backs turned.

  At last he came back, released the pressure and took the instrument out of her. He dropped it into a dish on a trolley beside him.

  ‘You shouldn’t be let near anyone.’ Her words were brave, but her voice still wavered.

  The nurse came over to the bench as Beasley retreated.

  ‘The doctor is just doing his job. If you don’t like it, you should have thought of that before you did what you did.’

  This woman knew nothing about her, nothing. Ali stood up, inches from her.

  ‘What is it you think I did, you stupid cow?’

  The nurse looked round, but Beasley had left. She flared her nostrils and clamped her mouth, gathering the roll of paper towelling from the bench.

  ‘That’s for the Guards to decide, darlin’,’ she said finally, stepping on the pedal of the bin so hard that the lid clanged against the wall.