The Secret Wound

by Deirdre Quiery

  “Awful isn’t it. He’s worked all his life. You would think he would be able to enjoy a happy retirement. You must be worried about him.”

  He looked at Laura. She was biting her lower lip and looking tearful.

  “You need to be careful that you don’t end up like that – on your own. You should meet someone. It’s lonely to live a life with no partner, no children to care about you.”

  Gurtha placed the coins for the wheaten bread into her hand.

  “In reality we’re all alone. We come into the world alone and we die alone – no matter how many people are with us. Maybe there are more lonely people in loveless relationships than there are those who live alone. If you are attached and dependent on anyone at some point you have to suffer – even if it is only when they die.”

  “Are you talking about Nuala?” Laura rang the money into the till.

  “Yes. But I’m not getting something. I have something to learn from Nuala’s death. I haven’t learnt it yet. But it feels so close – that I am looking at it and not seeing it. I know that death is natural – that it goes with life. You see it everywhere – in the leaves falling from the trees, the oranges growing from flowers – the flower has to die to allow the orange to come into being. I get that intellectually but I’m not really getting it deeply. I can’t think my way into understanding this. That’s my problem. I’m thinking about it too much and it’s driving me crazy. Yet that’s what my job is. I’m a professional thinker.” Gurtha laughed.

  Laura laughed with him.

  “I’ve no doubt that you will work it out. Don’t forget to come and tell me what it is. Although from what you’re saying – I will still have to work it out for myself.

  ♥

  Gurtha climbed the stairs to the front bedroom where Nuala stored her clothes. He had only looked briefly into it since Nuala had died – although the police had made a thorough forensic investigation. He opened the door slowly.

  The room was like a burial tomb within a Pyramid. Here were all the relics Nuala would have wanted to take with her to the next land if she had been the wife of a Pharaoh. Nuala was a hoarder – storing everything in plastic bags. On the floor to his left there must have been a dozen different Pringle jumpers – unworn – in different colours – beige, fuchsia, marigold and emerald green. Another bundle of blouses, then skirts and trousers, all unworn, all of the highest quality. He felt his eyes stinging. He imagined her buying them – the pleasure – the dreams about when she would wear them. She never did. She kept buying more and more. Each jumper, blouse, pair of trousers, pleated skirt – small consolations stacked away in plastic bags to compensate for the lack of love from Paddy.

  Cardboard boxes neatly stacked one on top of the other lined the far bedroom wall. He lifted one and opened it. His school jotters with his arithmetic notes, his essays and books from Primary School, enshrined. Nothing thrown away. His own life strangely dead in those boxes. There were even two small baby shoes from when he was less than a year old. What hopes and dreams did Nuala have for him?

  He spotted a white box sitting on top of the dresser. He knew it contained the wedding album. He opened the box. The album was wrapped in white tissue paper, as if new. He lifted it out and removed the paper. It felt sacrilegious to open. It was something that Nuala had wanted to keep unspoilt. It had a padded white leather cover. In silver it said, “Our Wedding by Vogue”. There was a page to write the details … The Marriage of … and … Son of … Daughter of … on … at … Bridesmaids … Best Man … Groomsmen … Reception at … Honeymoon at …Officiating Clergy …

  Nothing had been filled in. He turned a hard thick page and then slid back a page of fine transparent tissue paper which covered the first photo of Paddy’s Mother, Kathleen and his sister Eilish. There were three other women whom Gurtha didn’t recognise but he did recognise his cousins – Eilish’s children Maeve and Thomas - who looked about seven and five. He carried the album over to the window to see it more clearly. Paddy’s Mother was a big woman with a face like putty. She had a double chin. Her lips pulled into a straight line. Her eyebrows, two slanted lines on her forehead like the pitch of a steep roof. She wore a dark coat buttoned up to her neck. You couldn’t see any blouse or hint of colour below the coat, only a small triangle of flesh. In her lapel she wore a carnation wrapped in silver foil. Eilish looked happier. Blonde hair curled onto her jacket. Her suit was lighter in colour. She had a white shirt below the jacket and pearls. She had two carnations in her lapel and smiled. Beside Eilish stood a long narrow-faced women with sad eyes, her lips pulled into the same expression as Kathleen’s. Her coat buttoned up with enormous buttons all the way to her throat. She held a dark handbag with black leather gloves.

  He turned the page. There was Paddy with his brother Dennis, who had died ten years before, standing outside the Church. His shoes were so shiny that you could see the clouds in the sky sitting on top of them. He had a double breasted jacket with a silky tie and white carnation. His arms were hanging by his side with his hands slightly closed. It was his hands; the way he was holding them hadn’t changed. They were the same hands which Gurtha had patted the day before.

  All of Paddy’s soul – the part that never changes - seemed to be in his hands, not in his face. They even looked slightly swollen and arthritic but they couldn’t have been. You would never have recognised Paddy by his face. He had a high forehead – unwrinkled, a full head of hair with a clear parting to the left, two sticky out ears and a forced smile.

  Gurtha felt his eyes water again as he looked at Paddy staring at him. The space between Paddy in the photo and Gurtha seemed to get mixed up. It was as though Gurtha’s non-existence at that point in time was held in the space between them and around them. As though Gurtha was aching to be born in that space, waiting for his being to happen, watching his father get ready to be married. There was something solemn about the occasion – something almost frightening about the commitment that was being made.

  He turned another page. There was Nuala, her best friend and Matron of Honour, Veronica and Nuala’s father John. Nuala wore a long white silk dress with tiny mother of pearl buttons on the upper part. A long veil covered her face. This must have been before she walked into the Church when the veil would lifted back from her face and Paddy would see her clearly for the first time that day. She was holding a bouquet of roses which were probably red – the photo was in black and white and the roses looked black. She looked at the camera out of the side of her eyes. She wasn’t smiling; instead there was a look of great determination, as if she knew what she was stepping into. Yes that was it. She had the look of a martyr going to her death. Her father, John, looked as if he was attending her funeral, with the saddest eyes and the same putty face as his wife.

  He flicked through the remaining photographs quickly to see if he could find one photograph where they were smiling. He found one, taken in the grounds of the Church. Nuala was holding Paddy’s arm and they were looking into one another’s eyes and smiling. The deed had been done.

  The very last photograph was at the reception. A room filled with faces straining to turn to the camera. They were looking over their shoulders peeping into spaces to be seen. Nuala and Paddy were at the top table towards the back of the room. Gurtha shuddered as he realised that everyone in that photo was dead – everyone apart from Paddy. All of their lives up to that point had been lived with their hopes and fears, their joys and anxieties, their frustrations and fulfilments. Gone. Now they seemed to be held in the space between their faces in the photo and Gurtha. They were all around him in that empty space looking at themselves incarnate for an instant on Earth.

  He wrapped the album once again in its tissue paper, which now felt like a shroud and placed it in the box, which seemed like a coffin and back onto the table, which felt like a sepulchre. He walked out of the room into the bathroom, turned on the cold tap and splashed his face with water. As he towelled himself dry, he noticed that a long legged spider had be
en in the basin all the time he was washing. Its legs were flailing in circles and then crossing over one another as it franatically tried to stop itself going down the plughole. Gurtha quickly pulled a piece of toilet paper and placed it in the basin beside the spider. It took a few wobbly steps onto the paper. He gently placed the paper and the spider on the floor, the spider’s legs now all contracted towards its small body. Then it lay completely still. Gurtha didn’t know whether to flush it down the toilet or to see whether it would survive. He thought that its legs might be broken; maybe it would be kinder to kill it than to leave it to live as a spider without legs. He left it to see what would happen.

  He opened the door into Paddy’s bedroom. The light fell onto the floor from a large window beside the bed. Gurtha surveyed the bed with shock. The bed didn’t have a mattress. How had he not noticed that when searching for Paddy’s clothes for his holiday in Mallorca? Instead of a mattress there were blankets crumpled into small hills underneath a sheet. When, how and why had Paddy got disposed of his mattress?

  The small hills of Paddy’s bed sparked the memory of the house on the Malone Road which Gurtha had sold. There was a four poster bed, smothered in a powdery blue silk surround, mock gold taps in the bathroom where an ivory bath with gold lion feet crouched on the Fired Earth tiled floor. How could Gurtha have lived there while Paddy slept in this room? He sat on Paddy’s bed, holding his head in his hands for quite some time before slowly getting to his feet and returning to the bathroom where the two squares of white toilet paper lay moist on the bathroom floor. The spider was gone.

  ♥

  In the hospital at 3.30 pm Gurtha waited in a consulting room filled with the smells of anaesthetic, disinfectant and something unusual. He looked around and a candle burned in the corner sending out a hint of vanilla. On the wall, a pine trimmed board held letters from patients expressing their thanks for the care they had received from the doctors and nurses. Gurtha walked towards the board just as the door swung open. He turned around with a start, as though he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing, to see Cornelia standing in front of him.

  “What on Earth are you doing here? How did you know where to find me?”

  Cornelia laughed.

  “The shop – Laura told me where you were. I thought you might want company.”

  Cornelia moved towards him and kissed him on both cheeks.

  “How’s Paddy?”

  “They’ve done all of the tests. I’ve a meeting with the Care Team Leader in a few minutes to hear what they think needs to happen next.”

  Cornelia sighed.

  “That’s good. So you will know this afternoon. Where are you staying?”

  Gurtha hesitated, and then said,

  “The Holiday Inn by the BBC.”

  “I’ll check in to the Holiday Inn and maybe see you for dinner at 7.00 pm?”

  Gurtha nodded.

  “I’ll text you later.”

  ♥

  In the Holiday Inn, Cornelia unpacked her case, and reapplied her lipstick. Sipping on her tea and leaving the usual red stains on the rim of the teacup, Cornelia recalled how her mother, Anne, had once asked, “Imagine if you were born to sing. You would go to school to learn how to sing – nothing else. The world would be filled with human beings singing like larks at daybreak. Would you like that?”

  Anne looked into Cornelia’s green eyes waiting for a response. Cornelia placed both hands on the kitchen table as though to steady herself. Taking a deep breath and without answering Anne’s question, asked her own, “Why do birds sing at dawn and human beings don’t?”

  Anne twiddled her long black hair into a ringlets, “To attract a mate, defend where they are living. Maybe they’re glad to be alive.”

  Cornelia shook her head, in disbelief, removing her hands from the table and placing them on her red and white gingham dress.

  “I can’t imagine Daddy singing.”

  Anne laughed, got to her feet and went around to where Cornelia was sitting, standing behind her she crossed her arms over Cornelia’s chest and in a gentle yet firm voice said, “Of course he can sing. Simon sings every morning. He’s got a voice like a blackbird or maybe at times a corncrake.” She smiled to herself.

  Cornelia squeezed her Mother’s hands.

  “Do I have to go to school today? Can’t I stay here with you? Amelia doesn’t have to go to school.”

  “Amelia is only two. She will go to school when she is five. She’s only a baby.”

  Cornelia dreaded leaving the house. The world outside was so strange, so confusing. She imagined that she would get lost and that her Mother would not be able to find her. She would be stranded in a city which she didn’t know. The city of Cardiff was a whole planet circling round and around in space, with people walking along the streets knowing what to do and where to go, but not Cornelia. How did they know where to go? How did other people find their way home? Standing at the school gate, waiting for her Mother to arrive gave her a sense of being invisible – no-one could see her. If she started walking down any street, even her Mother would not be able to see her. But here, holding onto Anne’s hands, she was safe. She looked at the picture of “the Sacred Heart of Jesus” hanging on the wall in front of her.

  That night she had a dream.

  The picture of ‘the Sacred Heart’ appeared in the dream. It was enormous. If filled the entire wall. Cornelia was shrunken small like an Alice in Wonderland looking up at the painting and wanting to see Christ’s eyes. She couldn’t see them from the floor where she was standing but she could see that the painting was alive – Christ was breathing – his chest moving. Then she was lifted gently up into the air. She didn’t feel afraid but excited, as though she was in a fair ground with her Mother and about to get onto a roller coaster ride. As she floated towards the ceiling, she was able to look into Christ’s eyes. He was smiling at her and his hand came out from the painting – large, white and warm. She shook it and her body trembled with happiness. She then drifted effortlessly back to the floor. She knew that she would always be safe in this room with ‘the Sacred Heart’ and her Mother. She didn’t ever need to leave this room. The world could spin on and on without her needing to know it.

  Anne helped Cornelia into her school blazer.

  “Why don’t you like school?”

  Cornelia threw her arms around her Mother’s waist.

  “Miss Matthews slapped me with a ruler. I didn’t do anything.”

  Anne stroked Cornelia on the head, firmly yet gently.

  “You know that I have spoken with Miss Matthews and she said that never happened.”

  “But it did Mummy, it did. She’s telling you lies.” She cried pressing her face into her Mother’s polka dot dress.

  “Miss Matthews doesn’t believe in Jesus. I told her that he is alive. I told her that I saw him in the garden. He was buried up to his neck near the rose bushes – only his head was showing. It had a crown of thorns on it. He told me that he was alive. He wasn’t dead. Miss Matthews told me to stop telling untruths. Then she hit me with the ruler.”

  The door of the kitchen swung open with such force that the door handle scratched a line of white paint from the wall. Simon strode towards the pine table,

  “Cornelia, shut up. I’ve told you to stop talking about Jesus. I don’t want to hear another word about Jesus Christ.”

  He poured himself a cup of filtered coffee which Anne had earlier percolated and threw himself onto the Van Gogh chair, gulping at black coffee, coughing and then wiping his chin with the edge of the white table cloth, he glared at Anne.

  “Stop encouraging her with these delusional thoughts and take that bloody picture off the wall before I get home this evening.”

  Anne took Cornelia’s hand. It was cold. She rubbed it, turning her back on Simon and wiping tears away with the back of her hand. She said in a low, controlled voice, “Do you remember it is Cornelia’s birthday today.”

  Cornelia felt a scre
am sounding within her. A frustration ballooning within her which needed to burst. She hadn’t asked to be born into this frightening world with Simon as her father.

  ♥

  In the Holiday Inn Cornelia pulled on a turquoise swimsuit and walked towards the obligatory shower before going to the pool. She was alone. The shower water was cold. It was late August and she was pleased to see that she had managed not to get tanned. There were many examples in Mallorca of sun drenched, wrinkled, carved faces like the bark of the olive tree.

  She lowered herself into the water, staring straight ahead, as if in a daze. She began to swim, a gentle unhurried breast stroke, moving her arms through the water, pushing the water aside, spreading open her fingers to feel the water massaging her arms and hands. She brought her awareness into her body. She knew what would happen next. It always did when she had her body in such a state of suspended relaxation. Images would begin to play incessantly in her head. The internal chatter which accompanied them producing a familiar anxiety in her stomach. The images were of her sister, Amelia, aged seven – the year she died. It was as if Amelia was floating inside Cornelia’s head. It started with a simple image of her face smiling at her. She had fine blonde hair with natural ringlets, a stark contrast to Cornelia’s straight dark bob. Her face was more rounded than that of Cornelia – cherubic and angelic. She looked peaceful, tranquil, serene. Their mother Anne used to sit with Amelia on her lap brushing her hair. On Easter Sunday Anne would dress Amelia in a pink suit and Cornelia would be given blue. The rosy pinkness of Amelia’s suit contrasted with the creamy whiteness of her hair. Her cheeks had a natural smudge of cerise. Her eyes were a watery deep blue. Cornelia pinched her cheeks in the bathroom in an attempt to imitate Amelia’s beauty. Yet her cheeks only looked swollen and painful as if she had been crying. As they walked hand in hand with Anne along Tyn y Cae Road in Cardiff, strangers would stop Anne, bend down, touch Amelia on the chin and say, “What a beautiful child. One day she will break someone’s heart.”