The Butterfly State

by Carol Coffey

  She had not slept for the first three nights since the accident, the doctor finally giving her sleeping pills which brought a temporary release to her tortured mind. Sometimes when she woke, she would forget about what had happened, before the nightmare crashed down again upon her, making the day unbearable and longing for the night and the sweet release the pills brought.

  As she stood at the graveside, she leant on Tess who had become a rock to her. Dermot stood to one side with his aunt and uncle and looked sadly at her, the worry clearly showing on his face. People who she didn’t recognise came and shook her hand. Some kissed her and expressed their sympathy. She remembered seeing Noel Moore there alone, his mother having passed on some months before. He had shaken her hand and asked her to call him if she needed anything. The priest talked about the tragedy and the loss but most of his words became a blur of sound and repetition. Dermot’s aunt and uncle, knowing Kate had no family to help, organised refreshments back at their pub, insisting there was no charge. They could see how fond their nephew had become of Kate and wondered if some day they might all be a family. Kate had sat in the stuffy lounge and did not eat, her stomach feeling too sick to eat since Ben’s death.

  As the sympathisers drifted away, Dermot drove Kate and Tess back to an empty house. Kate had not spoken to him all day and although he knew it was a difficult day for her, he felt there was more to it and was concerned by the distant look in her eye. He offered to stay but she insisted she was fine as she kissed him and gently closed the door behind him.

  A few minutes later Kate heard a banging noise coming from the front gate. She looked out the window and saw Tess hammering her Butterfly State sign to the wooden post beside the post box, free to do so now that Seán would no longer be bothering her. Kate watched as her sister finished the task.

  “What a simple world you live in, Tess,” she said aloud.

  When Tess came inside, she smiled at Kate and sat silently on the chair beside the range, her favourite.

  Kate looked at her and sat down.

  “Well, Tess, what do we do now?”

  Tess did not reply. She understood it was not a question.

  Chapter 43

  1981

  Sam Moran sat busily typing up his weekly mart report and watched Talbot’s son, who had just returned from the States, push his weight around the office. The young Talbot spoke with a slight American drawl which sickened Sam. He always hated when people who were born and reared in Ireland picked up accents as soon as they got off the plane. He had seen it in London where a thick Dublin brogue was replaced within weeks by a cockney accent. Things were going to be different around here now and he was thinking of looking for another job. It would mean driving to Dublin every day as this newspaper was the only one in the area. He had tried to forget about the Byrne murder. He had thought about it every day but the few ideas he had about how to get the information he needed had come to nothing. Talbot had now given Sam and the young office apprentice, Ken, the obituaries, something that bored him even more than the mart report. It was always old Biddies and Paddies who had lived until ninety and he failed to see the newsworthiness of such.

  But Seán Byrne’s obituary was different. Sam had been to his uncle’s funeral in London when the accident happened and he had only heard about it when he returned. By then the story was old news. The newspaper had covered the tragic accident of the Byrne brothers and had, out of decency towards the remaining family members, not raised old wounds by mentioning the murder of the Byrnes’ father all those years ago, something Sam would have mentioned without a thought.

  As he looked through the photos that often accompanied the obituary pages, he saw the old school photo of Seán Byrne that Ken had managed to get at the local school. He peered closely at the red-haired freckled-faced boy who smiled shyly into the camera before putting the photo back on Ken’s desk and going to pour himself a coffee.

  He was halfway back to his desk when he turned around and walked quickly back to the apprentice’s desk, lifting the photo of Seán Byrne again. He looked closer. He was right.

  Seán Byrne was the spitting image of Éamonn McCracken. He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. Suddenly everything fell into place. McCracken was Seán Byrne’s father. He now knew why McCracken had sent him that warning and felt that he also knew who had murdered Michael Byrne and exactly where to go to prove it.

  Dermot Lynch had called to the Byrne house every day since the funeral and each time he became more worried about Kate. She was pale and drawn and refused to eat, insisting she had a sick stomach, the doctor saying her nerves would calm in time. On each visit she moved away when Dermot tried to hold her. When he tried to talk to her she retreated to her room, leaving Tess and Dermot alone, both unsure what to do to help. Tess told Dermot she was afraid that Kate had the same illness as her mother who vomited all the time. Dermot, who was not in Árd Glen back then, worried about this and decided he would ask his uncle about it when he returned to the pub. He considered talking to Kate’s uncle, her mother’s brother, but decided against it knowing Kate would not be pleased. Jimmy Kelly had called twice to the Byrne house since the deaths, his first time to visit since his sister Maura’s wake, but Kate had refused to speak to him.

  Dermot brought food every day and packed it away, sometimes cooking dinner and trying to force Kate to eat. He checked on the stock which had dwindled in recent years and wondered how the women were going to survive financially now. They could not run the farm alone and, although he had not looked for wages for weeks, they could not afford to hire any more help.

  By now Kate no longer spoke to him. His uncle was not sure what Tess meant by her comment about Maura Byrne always vomiting – as he remembered it, she got some rare brain disease and was as confused as an old woman before her death.

  Kate had now taken to sleeping in Ben’s bed, leaving Tess alone in the room they had shared. Hard lines began to appear around her mouth and she rarely if ever spoke, even to Tess who was growing more worried every day.

  Deirdre O’Connell sat on Kate’s bed and tried to tidy up the dishevelled woman. She had organised for the doctor to call and see Kate who was wasting away in front of her eyes. Her hair had not been washed for weeks and her skin was cracked and dry. Deirdre went into the kitchen and lit the range to heat enough water for Kate’s bath.

  Tess sat alone on the seat beside the range. She had dark circles under her eyes and was drawing on a new sketchpad that Dermot had brought her.

  “How are you, Tess?”

  “Fine,” she replied flatly.

  “You’re still drawing. Can I see it?”

  Tess turned the large page around as a horrified Deirdre searched for words. Tess had drawn a large pool of water that almost covered the entire page. The water was covered by a huge spider’s web. The tiny insect drawn in the centre of the web had two giant heads, covered in red hair and snarling. One of the identical heads had a broken front tooth. In the background Tess stood at the edge of the water, the water wetting the toes of her shoes as she looked upward. There were tears running down her face which had an unusual expression, not exactly fear but similar to it. Ben was drawn as a sleeping baby but with injuries similar to those he had sustained in the accident. Deirdre looked closer to see that his face was painted grey and that Tess had depicted him as a corpse. At the edge of the lake, near Tess’s feet, a body lay, its face under water, its black hair floating. In a far corner of the page, Kate was drawn sitting on a grassy mound. She wore a white dress which was ripped, showing her underwear. Her hands covered her face from which tears seemed to be flowing. Deirdre O’Connell looked at Tess, unsure what to say but becoming very concerned about Tess’s mental health. She wondered if she had underestimated the effect the accident had on the young woman.

  “Em . . . I don’t have my glasses on, Tess. What is it?”

  “It’s the lake, Deirdre,” Tess replied matter of factly as though this was obvious.

  Deirdre thoug
ht about asking Tess to explain the two-headed insect but knew this was beyond her training and decided that she would call Dr Cosgrove for his opinion. It was obvious that Kate wasn’t able to look after Tess and they might have to look at her being placed in care for a while.

  When the doctor arrived he was as shocked as Deirdre about Kate’s weight loss. Kate insisted she was eating, only to be corrected in each lie by Tess who stood in the doorway, as if on guard.

  Dr Doyle took blood tests and said he would get back to her as soon as he had the results. He looked around the house which was showing signs of neglect, then at Tess who stood nervously in the doorway. Deirdre signalled to him that she wanted to talk to him alone. On the front lawn, Dr Doyle agreed that unless Kate recovered soon, Tess needed to be placed in care and that he would make the necessary arrangements if Kate hadn’t shown signs of recovery within a week. He felt bad about it and felt that separating them might have a detrimental effect on the sisters. Deirdre agreed and said she would call every day and would organise home help to cook and clean. Dermot was looking after the stock as much as he could but Kate would not speak to him and he didn’t come into the house any more. Deirdre went back inside the house, unaware that Tess had listened to everything. She looked in on Kate once more who was sitting up in the bed, staring into thin air.

  Tess heard Dermot’s car on the gravel driveway and stood to open the back door. She knew the different sounds people’s cars made and knew who was coming without looking out of the window. Deirdre O’Connell’s engine was quiet and did not make any loud noises like Dermot’s did and Dr Doyle’s car made a rattling noise even though it looked newer than Deirdre’s.

  When Dermot came into the kitchen Tess stood and hugged him, her arms jutting tensely outwards.

  “Is Kate awake, Tess? I need to talk to her”

  Tess noticed that Dermot looked upset. She hoped there wouldn’t be any fighting.

  “Yes, Dermot. She’s in bed.”

  Dermot sighed. It was over a month since the funeral and Kate was not coping any better. He looked around him. The place seemed cleaner and Tess looked like she was okay.

  He went down the hallway and tapped gently before entering. Kate lay awake in her bed. Dermot was glad to see she had returned to her own room, Tess telling him that Deirdre O’Connell had made Kate do it. She did not look up when he entered.

  “Kate?”

  No response.

  “Kate, can you sit up please. I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

  No response.

  Dermot sat down on the bed, his body touching hers. He loved the feel of her warmth and longed to hold her. He missed her but she seemed beyond reach. He no longer knew what to say to her and, although he prayed she would come out of this, he believed she was lost to him.

  “Kate, my father is ill in Galway.”

  Kate turned her head and stared hard at him, almost as though she had woken to a find a stranger in her room.

  “My mother phoned this morning. He suffered a stroke while tending to the stock. I have to go back for a while. I’ve arranged for John Redmond to check on the stock while I’m gone.”

  Kate looked at him, tears forming in her eyes. Dermot gulped. He didn’t want this to be any harder than it had to be. It was breaking his heart to leave her like this. He wouldn’t have gone at all if it wasn’t for his mother’s pleas down the phone, begging him to come home, for there was no love lost between Dermot and his father. He tried to lift Kate’s shoulders from the bed to hold her but she stiffened and stared at him, an accusing look in her eyes that he couldn’t comprehend. He stood up, his large shoulders dropping forward as he stood, as though he had given all he had to give to Kate.

  “Kate, please say something before I go,” he said softly.

  Kate took another look at Dermot before turning her back on him. As he left the room he did not see the tears flowing from her eyes as she faced the cold damp wall.

  He stood in the hallway for a while, wondering what had gone wrong. They had not fought and he had supported her through every moment of her brothers’ funeral. Dermot leant against the wall. He had no idea what he had done to make her treat him that way or how to get her to open up to him.

  When he returned to the kitchen Tess told him about Nurse O’Connell’s conversation with the doctor, that if Kate didn’t get any better she herself would be taken away. Dermot listened as she asked if he could take care of her, that she didn’t want to go to a strange place, and that she wouldn’t be any trouble. He looked tenderly at the young woman who meant so much to him. He loved Tess like he loved his own sisters. He felt guilty when he reassured her as he wasn’t sure he had anything here to come back to. Dermot gave Tess his phone number and address in Galway and told her to ring him if there was anything he should know. Tess nodded and when he left she went back to her drawing.

  When Deirdre phoned Dr Cosgrove to discuss Tess’s paintings, Cosgrove told her that Tess had painted that same painting, albeit without the corpse of Ben and certain other details, over and over again during her years at the institution. He had tried to find out its meaning but any time he asked she would put her finger to her lips and say “shhh”, like it was a secret she wanted to keep. He told Deirdre that he later tried to bring Tess’s mind back to the murder but the process had a terrible impact on her and he’d had to sedate her, later abandoning all forms of therapy as he felt that if she had committed that crime, she had no under-standing of it and there was nothing to be gained from going over it with her.

  Deirdre listened intently and asked, “Do you think she did it, though?”

  Dr Cosgrove exhaled loudly before responding. “No, I don’t,” he said before hanging up.

  Deirdre felt Tess was trying to express a deep hidden memory through the paintings, something she couldn’t put into words and possibly didn’t even completely remember and she hoped she knew someone who could help her.

  Dr Doyle phoned Deirdre and asked her to meet him at Kate Byrne’s house as he wanted to have a female with him when he spoke to her and knew that Deirdre had become a friend of Kate’s. They arrived at the same time which confused Tess as she couldn’t work out who was visiting from the sound of the cars and had to come around the front of the house to see.

  Kate was sitting in the kitchen with a blanket wrapped around her. She felt cold although the home-care woman had lit a large fire in the range. Dr Boyle explained to a stone-faced Kate that he had her tests results and asked if it was okay for Nurse O’Connell to sit in. Kate nodded. Deirdre told Tess to go outside and check on the horse, an excuse to ensure Tess did not overhear the conversation. Kate seemed disinterested and not at all worried, as if her heart and soul had left her and nothing mattered now.

  Dr Doyle sat facing Kate and began to awkwardly remind her of the blood tests he organised to see why she was so ill, as though Kate might have forgotten.

  Kate nodded impatiently. She hated company now and felt at peace only when left to her thoughts. She spent her days thinking of Ben and where he was now. She imagined him in a heaven where he did not have autism and was playing with other boys his age, her mother looking on lovingly from the distance. Kate could summon this image up at any time and it made her happy, if only for a short time.

  “Well . . .” Doyle continued quietly, “your blood tests were fine.”

  Deirdre O’Connell looked up surprised. She thought she was invited here to comfort Kate because the doctor had bad news.

  “You’re malnourished, but you know that, Kate.” He stalled and looked at both women.

  Kate was becoming annoyed. He was drawing this out longer than he had to. “Then what, doctor, what is it for God’s sake!”

  “You’re pregnant.”

  Marcus Gill looked through Tess’s paintings that Deirdre O’Connell had brought to him, making “mmm” sounds periodically.

  “They’re good, quite good, very dark. You say your friend painted them?”

  “Yes, w
ell, it’s actually Tess Byrne – remember, the girl here on work experience?”

  “Really?” Pascoe replied, surprised.

  Apart from her little outburst, she had seemed like a gentle person. It was a pity she hadn’t continued with her work experience but he had heard about the family’s recent tragedy.

  “Do you have any idea what they mean?” O’Connell asked hopefully.

  “Why don’t you ask her?” Gill asked.

  “Well, it’s not that simple. You know she is autistic?”

  Marcus nodded.

  “It means that she finds it hard to express herself verbally or to understand her own emotions. It would be almost impossible for her to tell me what this means to her. I was hoping you might have some idea.”

  Marcus looked through the lake painting again. Deirdre pointed out who everyone was, telling him as much about the killing of Michael Byrne as she knew.

  “Well, you know, sweetie, that we all get different things from each painting, see it differently than the person in the gallery beside us,” he said, raising the pitch of his voice higher and becoming more flamboyant as the conversation went on. “It’s an individual thing.”

  Deirdre began to think that she had made a mistake bringing the paintings here. It had taken her ages to convince Tess to let her borrow them, bribing her with the promise of more paints and brushes in return.

  “But . . .” he continued, “if you want my humble opinion, I’d say she is a victim in this painting. See?” He pointed to her blurred face. “She has no mouth – it renders her helpless.”

  “Could it mean she has to keep a secret?” asked Deirdre.

  “Mmmm . . . possibly . . . but these insects are interesting. She’s telling us they are the ‘bad guys’ if you want it in simple terms. You see, they are almost identical except that one has a broken tooth. These represent real people that she knows. Very interesting. How much is she looking for?”