The Secret Wound

by Deirdre Quiery

  “Who do you think? My husband, of course.”

  There was no reply to the door bell ringing. The house remained in darkness with the curtains drawn.

  Elizabeth took Paddy’s hand.

  “He must be out. We’ll wait for him around the back.”

  She opened a small gate leading along a path of crazy paving with begonias growing to their left. As they got to the back garden, Elizabeth pointed to the right.

  “That’s where we can sit.” There was a wooden swing bench with a green and white striped tarpaulin over the top edged with a white fringe. “He would normally have put the cushions out but it will be OK. Tomorrow, after we have a good night’s sleep, we can go to the Titanic Visitor Centre. That’s my favourite place in Belfast. My father used to work in the shipyard. You can buy cigarettes there.”

  Elizabeth pulled Paddy over to the bench and continued to hold his hand as they sat under the tarpaulin. The occasional car rumbled by on the Limestone Road. Paddy sang in a low voice:

  “Who knows if we shall meet again?

  But when the morning chimes ring sweet again…

  I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places

  …and when the night is new,

  I’ll be looking at the moon,

  But I’ll be seeing you.”

  Elizabeth leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

  “You’ve a lovely voice. You could be on the stage. Aren’t you glad we’re home? You never know, we might even have a wee dance under the moon the way you’re going. I don’t mind if you don’t. Sure you’re only young once.”

  DAY 18

  WEDNESDAY 28TH AUGUST 2013

  BARRY SAT on a wooden chair in the Art Gallery and watched Angelina stick another red dot on a painting – another sale. The exhibition was going extraordinarily well. He couldn’t help thinking that the majority of the success was due to Angelina rather than the quality of the paintings. He watched her place a pencil between her teeth as she straightened the painting she had sold - her hair curling onto her shoulders like glossy syrup spreading onto porcelain. She was wearing a long white lacy blouse over spotted pink and white leggings.

  “When is Cornelia back?” Angelina sat on a wooden stool, leaning forward, resting her arms on her thighs.

  Barry coughed, ran his fingers through his hair and looked to his left towards the door.

  “She’s already back. She got back yesterday evening. She sends her love.” Angelina twisted her hair above her head, catching it into a pony tail.

  “Do you not think that it’s strange that she took off like that and went to Belfast to be with Gurtha?”

  Barry held his face in his hands before talking through his fingers.

  “I know why she went.”

  Cornelia walked over to the Nespresso machine and pressed the button.

  “Why?” She lifted a glass of sugar from the oak cabinet.

  “She is in love with Gurtha or at least she thinks she is. He’s not in love with her.”

  Angelina reached him a ‘cortado’ and asked, “How do you know that?”

  Barry placed his ‘cortado’ on the table.

  “I’ve seen the way he looks at her. I would say that in the past she might have meant something to him, but not now.”

  Angelina poured a glass of water and handed it to Barry.

  “What has changed? I don’t understand why he would come out here, if he wasn’t fond of her.”

  Barry wiped his sweaty hands on his beige chinos.

  “Maybe Henry meant more to Gurtha than he did to Cornelia? What if Henry was the real friend?”

  He rubbed his eyes.

  “Relationships are complicated are they not?”

  He brought Angelina’s hand to his lips. He gently bit her knuckles.

  “Thank you for friendship. I promise not to overstep the mark.”

  “You’ve bitten me – you’ve already done it.” She laughed. “I forgive you.”

  She moved towards the painting of Samson and Delilah.

  It’s a good story isn’t it – Samson and Delilah? I sometimes feel that Cornelia is like a Delilah.”

  Barry asked, “Who is Samson?”

  Angelina thoughtfully place a finger on her chin.

  “Hmmm. Could be you.”

  Angelina touched the painting and looked at it closely. There was an intensity of movement within the thick oil swirls which filled the sky with muddied orange, yellow, blue and green. Delilah merged into the background, sitting under a twisted olive tree holding Samson’s head on her lap. It was hard to tell if she had cut his hair or was about to do so.

  Angelina sat on the floor beside him.

  “Maybe it’s not you as you haven’t got much hair, have you? Anyway - the point of the story is that Samson’s hair grew back. He accomplished what he was meant to do. He had the strength to push the pillars of the temple apart. OK, he died in the process, but at least he fulfilled his destiny.”

  Barry took her hand.

  “If only it was easy to know your destiny, it would be easier to live it. What do you think is yours?”

  Angelina looked thoughtful.

  “Maybe to marry Gurtha.”

  Barry shook his head and tutted.

  “Cornelia would not like that.”

  Angelina clambered to her feet.

  “Maybe that’s her destiny. To discover that she can’t control people or life itself. Both need the freedom to be what they need to be.”

  DAY 19

  THURSDAY 29TH AUGUST 2013

  “WHEREVER YOU ARE, AND WHATEVER YOU DO, BE IN LOVE.”

  J RUMI

  PADDY WAKENED and stared at the ceiling. Where was he? He looked at the lampshade with its yellow tassels and then at the wall where a Papal Blessing for his marriage to Nuala hung beside a picture of the Secret Heart of Jesus. The eyes of Jesus stared at Paddy, a gentle stare. In the picture, his heart was covered with a ring of thorns. There was a gold heart on top, with a small crucifix. There was a halo around the heart and also around his head. That painting had been in the sitting room ever since he had been married to Nuala.

  He remembered her putting rosary beads over it. It had hung above the fireplace. He looked around the room. There was no fireplace.

  Where was he? Was he on holiday with Nuala? Why was he on his own? He felt a nauseous feeling in his stomach. It was like a heavy sludge, a pool of mud sliding towards his heart. It stopped there, crushing him. This wasn’t his bed. He rolled his legs onto the floor and looked at his blue and white striped pyjamas. The pyjamas were his pyjamas. He pulled the white cord tight into a small bow. He was getting thinner. He undid the bow and peeped down his pyjama bottoms. Yes, his stomach was flatter. For years he had a thick band of fat which made it difficult for him to close the button on his trousers. He pulled up his pyjama top. His chest was familiarly hairy. That was reassuring. He tied the bow once again on his pyjama bottoms and walked towards the window. Just outside there was a car park with a few parked cars and beyond that a road with black taxis driving up and down. It wasn’t the Crumlin Road. There was no Holy Cross Church opposite.

  He turned to look into the mirror above a small basin. They were his eyes, blue like Gurtha’s. His face was unsmiling. There were hairs growing out of the bridge of his nose. He pulled at one of them with his thick fingers. He lifted a toothbrush from a mug, turned on the cold tap and rinsed the brush before opening his mouth. He looked again into the mirror and into his toothless mouth. That was his mouth but whose toothbrush was that? He replaced it in the mug. He could catch something from someone else’s toothbrush. He walked back to the bed and sat on the quilt. Maybe someone would come to see him. He couldn’t remember. Had Gurtha died? He hadn’t seen him for a long time. Maybe he had died in a plane crash. He travelled a lot. Those planes were falling out of the sky all over the place these days. Who would visit him if Gurtha was dead?

  ♥

  He remembered. His mother would come and
see him or maybe he would go and see her and give her his wages. Where had he put the money? Paddy searched in the pockets of his pyjamas. There was only a damp tissue and a menthol sweet. He threw them both on the floor.

  ♥

  He was sitting on the sofa at home. His mother sat on a chair with her legs wrapped in white bandages. The Headmaster from the school was sitting facing his mother. He was fourteen years old. The Headmaster was telling his mother that he had highest marks in Northern Ireland for his Junior Certificate. The Headmaster wanted Paddy to stay at school and go on to further education. He said that he had the brains to study whatever he wanted.

  He looked at Paddy.

  “Would you like to be a Doctor, Paddy?” Paddy nodded yes.

  His mother shook her head. Her double chin wobbled. She patted the arm of the chair for emphasis.

  “He’ll have to go out to work with his father. There are five kids younger than him. We need the money. I don’t need you to be putting highfalutin’ ideas in his head, Mr McCaffrey.”

  That day Paddy had a feeling in his stomach and around his heart that he was turning into stone. He was becoming solid, petrified. There was nothing that he could do to stop it happening. If his mother had let him become a Doctor, did she not know that he could have taken care of her legs?

  DAY 20

  FRIDAY 30TH AUGUST 2013

  GURTHA CHECKED out of the Holiday Inn. He walked towards the City Centre for breakfast before visiting Paddy.

  Nuala was dead. How quickly had the image of her face and the sound of her voice vanished. When she was alive, he had dreaded her impending death. Now that she was dead – she was somehow like a wisp of the edge of a cloud that had no meaning, no heaviness, no weight. What was that wisp - delicate, changing, transparent – holding enormous wisdom. How could someone so fragile be so strong?

  Even though it was August, there was a chill in the air. He pulled a woollen scarf around his neck and straightened Paddy’s cap on his head. He glanced to his left where someone was lying in a sleeping bag in a doorway. The bag covered with a cardboard box. The head of a man with greasy dark hair stuck out from the bag, like a snail’s head. The man was pressing both hands against his eyes. He couldn’t be asleep. You couldn’t do that if you were asleep, could you – hold your hands over your eyes and sleep?

  A woman wearing wedge sandals, a pink dress, a turquoise leather jacket and matching handbag overtook Gurtha, walking quickly on his right. Gurtha stopped. He wasn’t sure about what to do next. He waited beside the snail in his cardboard shell. A man approached with shoes which clicked like a grandfather clock. He walked quickly past. From behind, Gurtha watched him disappear in what he knew to be a Paul Smith suit and Barker shoes. Gurtha placed a few coins on the ground.

  ♥

  The corridor in the Milthorn was circular so that the residents could keep walking and not feel confused by choices of going right and left. There was only one path and you kept circling it. Gurtha circled until he spotted Paddy.

  Paddy was dressed as though going to a wedding – in a striped blue and white shirt, a dark blue silk tie and a petrel blue V-neck woollen jumper over navy blue trousers. He was leaning against the doorway leading into the TV room. His arms were crossed. He gazed into the room, carefully inspecting the inhabitants. Gurtha joined him and gave him a hug. Paddy smiled back without saying a word. They stood together silently, looking into the sitting room. There were four men, sitting in separate chairs. The TV was on. A reporter talked about the global economic crisis and evidence of a financial recovery.

  The men watched the screen intently, seemingly interested. Their mouths hanging open, hands lightly gripping the sides of the chairs, eyes staring straight ahead, lost in a world which no longer had meaning for them but within which they still had to exist. Paddy seemed to be curious about them – as though he was different – as if he knew that, although he was there with them, he was not really like them. He had been imprisoned under false pretences.

  “Can I go with you?”

  Gurtha felt his innards quiver – a trembling inside – knowing that the answer was no. Yet did it have to be no? Could he not take Paddy with him and take care of him? Paddy’s loneliness soaked into Gurtha. The enormity of the terrible paradox and tragedy of life itself. The mystery of an abundant creative, intelligence holding everything in existence – making sense and being meaningless at the same time.

  DAY 21

  SATURDAY 31SH AUGUST 2013

  “YOU ARE NOT A DROP IN THE OCEAN. YOU ARE THE ENTIRE OCEAN IN A DROP.”

  J RUMI

  GURTHA FOUND himself back in Paddy’s house on the Crumlin Road. The keys were to be returned to the Housing Executive later that afternoon. Even though he had cleaned the downstairs toilet half a dozen times, it still smelt strongly of urine. He pulled the bleach out from under the sink, filled a bucket with hot water and opened the door of the toilet to give it a final clean.

  After bleaching the toilet floor and throwing rubbish for the last time into the skip, he visited Laura in the shop. The door resisted his push, as it always did. Laura polished the windows on the shelves displaying soda and potato bread. She jumped, her eyes opening wide with surprise.

  “Hi. What the news?”

  She smiled at him, hugging him, pressing her face against his. He felt her skin slightly cold and damp against his cheek.

  “Probably what you already know, Laura. Paddy has been diagnosed with dementia. He’s in the Milthorn.”

  Laura searched for a tissue and wiped her eyes.

  “But he’s so independent. How will he live in a place like that?”

  Laura pulled a scrunchie from her hair and allowed her hair fall onto her shoulders.

  She looked into Gurtha’s eyes.

  “What’s the news from that Geisha girl who was at Nuala’s funeral?”

  Gurtha audibly gasped.

  “Geisha girl - you mean Cornelia?”

  “Yes. Cornelia.”

  Gurtha shook his head.

  “She’s back in Mallorca.”

  Laura dropped her arms to her side and stared at the ceiling. She bit on her lower lip before speaking.

  “Are you … in a relationship with her?”

  She waited for an answer.

  “We are friends. Why do you ask that?”

  “I saw you with her in Pizza Express on Monday. You didn’t see me. I was sitting by the window. Watching you together, I wondered what, with her husband being dead, if maybe your relationship had changed?”

  “Well, it hasn’t changed for the better if that’s what you mean. I’m upset that you didn’t come over and join us for a meal. I would have liked that.”

  “You seemed to be having a deep conversation. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  “It’s impossible not to have a deep conversation with Cornelia. That’s the way she is.”

  Laura looked around as if afraid that someone would hear what she was going to say next.

  “At the funeral, she wore a hat with a veil.”

  “Yes – that’s right.”

  “I didn’t see her hair. She didn’t take her hat off at all.”

  “That’s true. But I don’t understand why that is important.”

  “In Pizza Express I saw her hair for the first time. It’s distinctive – that blonde plait falling onto her shoulder, with her hair so black. It’s also because the plait is so much longer than her black hair – it looks odd.”

  “Yes. I suppose it does if you’re seeing it for the first time. She has had that hairstyle ever since I’ve known her. It looks normal to me. Why are you commenting on it – now?”

  Laura’s voice trembled.

  “This is maybe crazy – but you know Michael Donovan – the taxi driver?”

  “Yes. He used to drive Nuala to the hospital for her check ups.”

  “Yes, that’s him. The day Nuala died, he came here to buy some bread. He told me that he’d had a strange woman in his taxi. He s
aid that she seemed agitated. Even though he asked her not to, she insisted on smoking in the taxi. He decided to ignore it as he thought she seemed a little crazy. She asked to be dropped off at the bottom of Brompton Park. Michael had the feeling that she didn’t want him to know where she was going.”

  Laura fiddled with the cloth in her hand. She polished the counter.

  “Michael said that happens a lot when people have something to hide – normally they’re having an affair. He asked me if I had seen her. He described that she was wearing black – a long black dress with a black leather jacket. He mentioned her hair – with a blonde plait buried in what he called raven black hair. I remembered that I had seen someone like that walk on the other side of the road, past the shop on the day that Nuala died. But I never thought anything about it until I saw you both arguing together in Pizza Express.”

  Gurtha interrupted.

  “We weren’t arguing. Cornelia had a little too much to drink and was being a bit loud. But on the day that Nuala was murdered, Cornelia caught a taxi from the airport. It would be quite normal that you might have seen her walk past the shop if she decided that she wanted a little exercise.”

  Laura shook her head.

  “No. You see, I saw her at mid-day. That was before Nuala died. Didn’t you say that the coroner said that the time of death was around one o’clock? You discovered Nuala at four thirty.”

  “Yes, but Cornelia texted me from the airport at four thirty saying she had just landed at Belfast International. She landed after Nuala had been murdered. It couldn’t have been Cornelia that you saw.”

  “She walked past the shop without looking in. It was mid-day. I remember that the bells of the Church were chiming for the Angelus. There isn’t another person with a hairstyle like that around here. I imagine that she deliberately wore a hat at the funeral in case anyone, like Michael Donovan for example, recognised her.”

  Gurtha took a few seconds to reply.

  “But even if Michael Donovan recognised her at the funeral, there would be no reason for him to be suspicious of her.”