by Maeve Binchy
“A smart ad agency where they give her the clothes. Huh!” said Johnny. The man in the porter's hut outside the upmarket apartment had, according to Tim, turned out to be a known fence, dealing in only top-of-the-market goods. James said that maybe Eileen kept all her things in Mountainview Road. If they could only get in there. Ania said she knew she was being irritating, but she felt very uncomfortable using this poor woman, who was, after all, a patient in the clinic where she worked, as a trap to catch Eileen.
“It would break her old sad heart into little pieces,” she said.
They were all silent. Only Brian Flynn seemed to understand and sympathize.
Nothing happened for a week. Father Tomasz came up from Ross-more and was brought up to speed on what was happening. He said it was like a story but nobody knew the end. Eileen came in and out of the social center as usual, but more fleetingly She said no more about Father Flynn, just a few mysterious remarks to the effect that everyone would know soon enough. In a short time they would see for themselves.
And then, on her second visit to the heart clinic, Kathleen Edwards walked out of the clinic without looking where she was going and tripped over a loose paving stone. Fortunately, it wasn't too serious. The A&E department treated her for shock and a graze on her forehead, but what was to happen now? They asked the clinic for details of her next of kin. Johnny was there when the request arrived.
“Why don't I take her home? I have something to do up that way, near Mountainview Road,” he said.
“How do you know where she lives?” Clara had Kathleen Edwards's file in her hand.
“Oh, I think Ania mentioned it. Look, it's Ania's lunchtime. Why don't we both take her home?”
Normally Clara was loath to make anything easier for Frank Ennis and the mandarins, as she called them, in the hospital, but this did seem sensible. “And you'll contact the daughter, okay?” she said, just to check.
“Absolutely. We'll ring the advertising agency,” Johnny said.
In 34 Mountainview Road they found a very shabby, ill-kept house. Two windows had been broken and were filled in not with glass but with plywood.
Ania went off to make a cup of tea and Johnny looked around. “You'll need a rest. You've had a shock,” he said.
“Yes, well, I'll lie down on the sofa,” Kathleen Edwards suggested.
“No, let's get you into a bed.”
“He might come home. He wouldn't like to find me in bed.”
“Well, is there another bedroom?” Johnny asked.
“Only Eileen's. We never go in there. It's locked, you see.”
She looked to a door across the corridor from the kitchen/living room. Johnny ran at it with his shoulder. The door splintered.
“It's not locked now,” he said.
They looked in. Two clothes rails stood there with jackets, coats and dresses on them, some in plastic bags. Handbags and shoes were lined up in the alcove beside the window, and down one wall were shelves holding a series of sweaters, blouses and jeans. Kathleen Edwards stood, her hand holding her throat.
“You broke down her door,” she gasped.
“It was an emergency,” Johnny said. “She won't mind. Let's call her and tell her about everything.”
Eileen answered her phone immediately.
“Your mother had an accident. She's fine and we've got her home, but she will need someone here to keep an eye on her.”
“If she's fine and you're with her, then she doesn't need anyone else.”
“Come back here, bitch. Come back this minute,” Johnny said slowly.
“Who is this? What on earth is this about?”
“It's about you, Eileen. I'm standing in your bedroom. Come home at once.”
“You can't be!” Her voice was a gasp.
“Want me to read out the merchandise to you? From left to right?”
“Are you the Guards?” Her voice was shaky now.
“I'm one step, one phone call from the Guards. Let's say ten minutes from the Guards.”
“I can't be home in that time, the buses are—”
“Take a taxi.”
“Whoever you are, I can't afford taxis.”
“Yes, you can. Use some of the money you got from the porter up at the apartments when you sold him your handbag.”
“Who are you?”It was like a whisper now.
“Come home and find out,” Johnny said.
• • •
Together Ania and Johnny calmed Mrs. Edwards down. They reassured her that her heart was fine, her blood pressure almost normal and all she was feeling was shock. They wanted her out of the bedroom and all it contained, so she sat at the kitchen table and told them how frightened she was that her husband would come home drunk. He was two men, her husband, one in drink and one sober. Trouble was, you never knew which one was going to come in that door.
“Don't worry. I'll be here.”
“He'll be very upset about that door,” she warned.
“I'm great with upset people,” Johnny promised.
Ania looked up with huge, anxious eyes. “You won't do anything …you know.”
“I won't,” Johnny promised. “And now it's time for you to get back to the clinic.”
“Oh, I must stay here and look after Mrs. Edwards.”
“You're not a nurse, Ania. Get back to Clara.”
“But how will I know?”
“We'll meet later on in Corrigans.”
“If my poor mother knew that I go to a public house every single night!” Ania grumbled, but Johnny was right. She had to go back to her job.
The taxi drew up outside 34 Mountainview Road and Eileen got out. Johnny noticed that she wore a smart, lilac-colored jacket and a black skirt and lilac-colored boots. She must do her shoplifting with a color-coordinated plan. Around her neck was one of those very expensive silk scarves that ladies often wore at the races. That's where Eileen Edwards would be more in place than letting herself into this broken-down house where the presence of a violent father and a nervous mother sat side by side with a locked room full of stolen goods. Johnny hardened his heart. No sympathy, no pity. This woman was totally prepared to destroy Brian Flynn, one of her few decent friends left in the Western world.
Kathleen Edwards looked up fearfully when she heard the key turn in the lock. She seemed relieved that it was only Eileen.
“You didn't have to come home. I'm fine,” she began.
“I did have to, apparently. Where is he?”
“In your room. He says he'll repair the door.”
“He'd better. Who is he?”
“I don't know. He was there just after the accident.”
From the next room, as he listened, Johnny realized that the girl had not offered one word of sympathy to her mother. Eileen came into her bedroom and saw Johnny sitting casually on the bed. She recognized him at once as a regular at Corrigans, a man who had occasionally come to help at the center. He had a flat in the house where Brian lived.
“I might have known that it was his doing,” she said as she looked at the splintered door.
“He has no idea we are here.”
“We?”
“Ania and I. We brought your mother here after the accident. She's going to be fine, actually, if it's of any interest to you.”
“What will be of interest to you, Johnny, is what my father will do to you when he comes back and finds you've broken into his house.” Her voice was level. She had shown no fear, no panic at the situation.
“Of course, he will also find a house full of Guards, his daughter arrested for theft and himself brought down to the Guards station for domestic violence.”
“She'd never say a word against him.” Eileen looked scornfully toward the kitchen and the weak mother who had never stood up to violence before and would not do it now.
“She already has,” he said casually, almost lazily, as if he didn't really care.
“I don't believe you.”
“She's made a statement to
Ania and myself. She'll talk to the Guards this time.”
“In your dreams.”
“Who else has she in this house that will listen to her?” Johnny asked. There was silence.
“What do you want, Johnny?” she said eventually.
Michael Edwards was on his way back from the pub where he had spent lunchtime. A very odd thing had happened. A message had come to the pub that he had to pick up some wood and bolts and a heavy-duty lock at Finn Fitzgerald's Builders Providers shop. They had been paid for because there were some urgent repairs to be done at home. It was very puzzling. Michael didn't remember any fracas at home last night. And when he went into the shop, Finn Fitzgerald had the stuff ready and had indeed been paid for it. “What's the story here, Finn?” he had asked.
“I'd get home as soon as you can, Mike. I didn't like the look of that fellow who was in here earlier with your daughter. Some kind of weight lifter.”
“And he paid?”
“No, your daughter paid. Real money. It's all kosher, Mike. Get back there soonish.”
He came into 34 Mountainview Road with his usual bluster and flung the wood and locks in the hall.
“What is this about?” he began.
“Your wife had a bit of a fall, Mr. Edwards. Fortunately her injuries are minor, but she is, of course, in a state of shock. She's in the kitchen if you want to check things out.”
“Who are you to be telling me to check things out in my house?” Michael Edwards had a red, angry face.
“Who am I? I am a friend of your daughter's and I also happen to work in the clinic where Mrs. Edwards was attending. That's who I am.”
“And why are you still here? She's home. She's all right. What's your business here?”
“To help you repair a door that unfortunately got broken in the course of things.”
“What?”
“Yes, I thought if we started now we could get it done together.”
“Well, you thought wrong. I'm having a pint, minding my own business and I get a message shouting the odds at me.”
“We could start by pulling the broken wood out,” Johnny said.
“How did the wood get broken?” he asked.
For the first time, Eileen spoke. “Do what he says, Dad. I mean it. It will be better for all of us in the end.”
“I won't be talked to like that in my own house—”
“It's Mam's house, Dad. She got it from her father. Remember?”
“Same difference,” he said.
“Not now. Things have changed.” Eileen was crisp.
“For you they may have if you want to put up with the manners of your fellow here.”
“He's not my fellow.” The sentence came out like bullets.
“Well, it's got nothing to do with me.” Mike Edwards looked as if he was heading back to the pub.
“Dad, have sense. She's telling the Guards. Finally.”
“She hasn't an ounce of proof.”
“She has. This nosey parker, she has the Polish girl, and she has me.”
“But you're not going to open your trap.”
“This time I am.”
“Why on earth?”
“It's my get-out-of-jail card.”
“And what about mine?”
“Mend the door, Dad, and then Johnny wants to talk to you.”
“And what will you be doing, I ask?”
“Making Mam some soup and toast.”
“But you never do that.”
“I'm going to be doing it from now on, it seems.” She looked balefully at Johnny.
Mike Edwards took off his jacket. Whatever this was about, it was serious. He looked into his daughter's bedroom. Rugs covered the rails of clothes. He couldn't see what the clothes were even if he was interested. “This isn't going to look great, a door sort of nailed together,” he grumbled.
“The windows don't look all that great either. Eileen is going to a glazier next week to get those restored, aren't you, Eileen?”
“I am,” Eileen said glumly.
It took an hour to get the makeshift door mended and put on the lock. There were two keys. Eileen got one and Johnny kept the other.
“I'll be back in a week so we will see how the decluttering is getting on,” he said. “New windows might even be in?”
Mike went back to the pub, having cleared up the hall under Johnny's supervision.
“I hate a mystery,” he said over his shoulder to Johnny, “and you're one real mystery man, so you are.”
Kathleen Edwards was very unaccustomed to being fussed over and looked after. “Don't you need to get back to work, Eileen?” she asked anxiously.
“No, Mam, I have the rest of the day off.”
“And most of this week,” Johnny added helpfully in case she had forgotten. Eventually Kathleen Edwards went up to her bed and left Johnny and Eileen in the kitchen. He poured himself another mug of tea with the ease of a regular visitor, an old friend.
“You're not going to get away with this,” she said.
“I have,” he said simply. “I made you an offer, you accepted it. That's all.”
“You didn't make me an offer. You blackmailed me.”
“I asked three things. That you move all this stuff in your bedroom on to charity shops, that your mother is made safe and comfortable in her own home and that you tell Brian the charade is over.”
“And you'll tell him all this?” Her lip trembled.
“Not if you do your bit.”
“And if I don't, you get the Guards.”
“I have a great friend, a desk sergeant, he'd be down on you like a ton of bricks.”
“It's not going to be easy getting that stuff, as you call it, into charity shops.”
“You'll manage. You got it out of posh shops.”
“If my father gets drunk again I can't be held responsible.”
“I've given your next-door neighbor my phone number, told him I was a welfare worker.”
“He won't believe you.”
“I gave one meaningful look at that pit bull terrier with a muzzle that he has in the house. He believes me.”
“And Brian?”
“Tonight in Corrigans at seven o'clock. The snug at the back.”
“I'm not sure I'll be up for it.”
“I think you will be. It's Corrigans or it's my mate the desk sergeant at the Guards station.”
“But if I can't say it?”
“We've been over it twice. Let's do it a third time to make sure you're word-perfect.”
They filed into the back booth in Corrigans: James O'Connor, Father Brian Flynn, Johnny, Tim, Ania and Lidia, and Father Tomasz, who had taken the bus up from Rossmore for the occasion.
Brian thought it was just an ordinary meeting. He was surprised that James didn't have a clipboard and paper to take notes. James bought a drink for everyone. He cleared his throat.
“Eileen is joining us. She has something to say,” he began.
Brian struggled out of his seat. “James, what are you doing? There's no point in asking her anything. I thought you knew that.”
“No one is going to ask her anything. She wants to say something. Here she is now.”
Eileen was less of the Goldilocks now as she looked into six pairs of hostile eyes and the troubled face of Father Brian Flynn.
“Brian, I have to say something and it's not easy. I've had a troubled life and I am inclined to live in a fantasy world to make things better. So I pretend that I have a beautiful apartment instead of living in my parents’ falling-down place in Mountainview Road. I pretend I have a lot of upmarket friends, but in fact I have a violent, drunken father who beats my mother. I have no trust fund or allowance or whatever I said. I steal clothes and fashion items. I am barred from most of the stores in Grafton Street and Henry Street, so I have to go out to the suburbs now. I sell some of these things on …” She paused and looked only at the face of the priest.
“And then, because I didn't have anyone to l
ove me, I made up someone to love me. I pretended that I was in a relationship with you. I see now what a dangerous, stupid, wrong thing it was to do. But I was so lonely. I tried to think of how comforting it would be. I made up all these stories. I watched you as you typed your password and then sent myself e-mails from the Internet café. I borrowed your mobile phone from the center and used it to send myself a message. I borrowed your key from Ania's handbag to get access to his flat.”
The silence was heavy. Their faces were stricken at the terrible things she had done.
“I'm very, very sorry, Brian. Can you forgive me?”
Brian was wordless. Literally without a word to say. Eventually he stuttered out, “Why now? Now, after all this time?”
Johnny's voice was smooth and soft. “Eileen had a great shock this morning when her mother had a fall. She realizes that some things in life are more important than others. She now has got her priorities right. Is that it, Eileen?”
“Yes, that's it. I see now what matters and what doesn't.”
The big, generous face of Brian Flynn was about to welcome her back as a friend, but Johnny had plans for that.
“Since it's obviously too embarrassing for Eileen to be around people who know this part of her life, she is not going to be in the center anymore. She wants to say good-bye to Brian tonight and assure him in front of all us witnesses that if Brian forgives her and does not take her to court, she will not cross his path again.”
“Yes, that's what would be best,” Eileen said.
“But of course I forgive you,” Brian said. “You are very courageous to have come here of your own accord—”
“She had to come,” Johnny interrupted Brian's speech. “She is an ordinary, decent person who couldn't live long with such a deception and she knows that she will keep to this. It's the only thing she can do.”
And as Goldilocks walked out of Corrigans, and out of their lives, Ania noticed that she was not wearing smart boots as usual, or her high-heeled, smart leather shoes, and the scarf was not one that would have been worn at the races. Ania also noticed that Tim was paying a lot of attention to Lidia and asking her what kind of music she liked.
Brian was wiping his eyes, where tears of relief and happiness had begun.