In White Ink

by Elske Rahill

  That evening in the car, out of compassion for Graham, she pretended nothing had happened. She chatted away about the play, and about their daughters, and she saw him flinch as though her voice hurt him. Then he turned to her suddenly, and rubbed his face hard. ‘Look, I’m tired, Kathleen,’ he said, ‘I don’t care. I just don’t care.’ Kathleen couldn’t remember what she had been saying, so she couldn’t answer, but his face – the weariness in his voice – she felt a fool. They drove home in silence. When they parked the car in the drive he said quietly, ‘Sorry love. I’m tired.’ Kathleen looked at her nails – freshly shellacked that morning so that she would look nice for the theatre. They were candy pink and she saw now that the colour was tacky. She patted her husband’s knee. ‘Okay,’ she said, and they went indoors.

  *

  Ruth arrived first. She and Kathleen ate canapés together in their wedding dresses for half an hour before Gillian turned up. Kathleen had asked her hairdresser to come out to the house that day. It had taken two and a half hours to get her hair right – with highlights and curlers and everything. She had contemplated getting a professional to do her make-up too. Standing by the canapés, the white paper tablecloth flecked with pink and blue confetti and spread with seven different nibbles (Kathleen had made them all herself the night before, all from the first cookbook she had used as a new wife), she was glad she hadn’t gone so far as to hire a make-up artist. She had picked up a few disposable cameras in Boots, just for the laugh, like the good days – it was all cameras back when they got married, not smart phones – and she asked Ruth to take some photos of her sticking her tongue out. Two hours later three more had arrived, but they were still waiting for one of the starters, one of the main courses, and the desserts. Ger turned up in a cab with a sherry trifle.

  ‘Gráinne texted me,’ she said. ‘It was taking ages for the limo to get everyone, so we decided we’d speed things up and get cabs!’

  Gráinne arrived shortly after, and then Paula, also in a cab. When the limousine finally arrived with Mary, Kathleen went out to tell him he didn’t need to get the others. She said it to him as though it was no great change of plan: ‘Thank you very much. Don’t worry about the others. They’ve made their own way.’ He had been hired for the evening, and looked a little alarmed. But then he shrugged.

  ‘Whatever makes the ladies happy...’ He asked what time he should come to pick them up. Kathleen went back inside to ask the assembly of Brides Again.

  When she entered the room they all stopped speaking and turned to face her. Ger held a champagne glass in one hand, and a blini with avocado and salmon cream in the other. ‘Oh God,’ said Ger, ‘the poor guy. Tell him to go home. We’ll get cabs.’

  Two other Brides Again nodded and took large gulps of champagne.

  ‘He’s hired for the evening,’ said Kathleen. ‘We have to pay for the evening.’

  There was silence in the room, except for the ‘Here Comes the Bride’ instrumental that was still playing on a loop. Kathleen had wanted each Bride to arrive to that tune.

  ‘I arranged to hire him for the evening,’ said Kathleen, ‘because that’s what we all agreed.’

  ‘I think we should leave it,’ said Mary, ‘we’ve had our limo rides now. I’d rather cab it...’

  They all stood around Kathleen’s beautifully decorated dining room and looked at her. Each of their dresses was a slightly different shade of white or cream. Mary’s was almost beige.

  ‘Perhaps he would do us a deal,’ said Ruth, ‘if we let him go home now?’

  Kathleen touched her neck. She knew her lips had thinned into a straight cut, the way they did when she was angry. She had put a lot of work into this evening on the girls’ behalf. After a little silence she said, ‘Fine. Can I have the money to pay him please? Eighty euros each, as agreed.’

  ‘I gave mine to Ger,’ said Gillian.

  ‘Oh Kathleen,’ said Ruth. ‘Sorry, I forgot. Can I pay you on Monday?’

  Then Kathleen heard Graham’s car on the gravel outside. He came into the hall, sighed loudly and threw his overnight case on the floor. That wasn’t like him at all. Graham was gentle and controlled in his movements. He placed things. He was never rough.

  ‘Oh,’ said Kathleen. ‘Strange. Graham is in earlier than expected.’

  He came into the room and kissed Kathleen beside her mouth. ‘Don’t you all look great!’ he said, and then: ‘What’s yer man doing in the pink stretcher?’

  ‘Waiting,’ said Kathleen, ‘waiting to be paid as promised. But some of the girls forgot their money.’

  There was a clustering about and a muttering. Ger went into the hall to get her clipboard and cashbox.

  Graham smiled and shook his head, but Kathleen stood stock-still with a straight back and her hands clasped in front of her.

  ‘I have gone above and beyond, girls. I organized the whole thing. I even paid extra out of my own pocket to get the pink one – and not for myself. I didn’t even get a ride in it...’

  Ger came in from the hallway with Ruth and Mary and Gráinne, and pushed a crumpled pile of money into her hand.

  ‘We’ll give you the other two hundred on Monday...’

  ‘Well,’ said Kathleen, touching her veil and the soft glossy curls, ‘well it won’t do. I need to pay the limo man. And I need to be reimbursed for the champagne...’

  ‘Oh Kathleen,’ said Graham, ‘don’t embarrass yourself. Just use the card. Sort it out later.’

  Kathleen rarely said no to her husband. She respected his authority on these kinds of things. But she put her foot down on this one. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. Ger agreed to collect the money.’

  Graham grimaced. ‘I’m tired, Kathleen.’ Then he looked wearily around the room. ‘Well, goodnight, ladies,’ he said. ‘I’m going up. Have a good night. You all look...’ Then he moved swiftly towards the stairs.

  Kathleen stood looking at her friends. They lowered their heads. Ruth picked up an entrée, and put it down again.

  ‘Well,’ said Kathleen. She allowed her eyes to travel slowly over the small crowd. She looked at their hands; their ankles; their cheeks. She was sorry to notice that they all wore too much rouge, and each a different shade – some crimson, some pink, some orange. She hoped her make-up was alright, and knew, suddenly, and with absolute certainty, that they should all have chipped in for a make-up artist, instead of the limo.

  Bride

  TO AVOID BUMPING into her husband, they met early on the steps of the district court. A quiet rain had fallen during the night, leaving a film of water on bins and windowsills and bicycle rails. They waited in the morning chill for the doors to open. Anne tucked her fingers into the sleeves of her cardigan. Her barrister paced back and forth. There was a pregnant woman with ink-black hair asleep in the doorway, and a man from the council polishing the pavement with a noisy machine. The street smelled of rubbish and of soap.

  At last two men came and lifted the heavy brass bolts of the courthouse door. Their uniforms were navy blue with silver buttons. They were unperturbed by the heap in the doorway, the mottled swell of belly peeping out under her tight hoodie. They dealt with it by standing near her, eyes averted, arms crossed, until she picked herself up and disappeared.

  Anne’s barrister found them a consultation room on the first floor. A window opened onto the street below, but there was no breeze to cut the closeness of the walls and the low strips of fluorescent light.

  The court summons said 10.30. Anne thought that was when their case would be heard, but her barrister said that all the cases were called for that time, and anyway the judge was late. At 10.45 there was an announcement and her barrister left the room. When he came back he said that Anne’s case had been put near the end of the list. The judge wanted to get through the simpler ones first, he said.

  They stayed in the room for hours, listening to names being called over the intercom. They called them by initials: K.T. and M.T.; C.B. and H.M. Every time the letter A was heard Anne felt
a feverish urge to shit and the very possibility of such a thing made her eyes water with shame.

  ‘You just relax,’ said her barrister, ‘I have it. It’s under control. The important thing is to be calm. No hysterics.’

  *

  When their case was called, her barrister opened an old sports bag. He took out a starched white bib and a black gown that had been rolled into a ball. He shook out the creases, put his arms into it and stretched black wings over his head with a yawn. He made strange sounds – ‘rrrrr,’ ‘llll... aaaaa’. Then he grinned reassuringly and smoothed the bib against his chest.

  In the courtroom he was unsmiling. He called her by her married name:

  ‘Can you tell us please, Mrs Casey – when did you begin to think that something was wrong?’

  Anne shifted her chair so that she could face the judge. Her barrister had advised her to do this. It was a plastic chair, the kind found in school assembly halls. She had to lean her weight on one corner to stop it from wobbling.

  She had decided not to wear make-up. ‘Look like a mammy,’ the barrister had said, ‘don’t get all dolled up. If it’s the judge I think it is, he doesn’t take kindly to dolly birds.’ It was a different judge than expected, but by the time they knew this it was too late. She hadn’t even brought lipstick in her bag. Her mouth was pale. Her hair was drawn back in a black velvet scrunchie – the hairstyle that suited her least – and she wore the office-style trousers that made her bum look wide. She had purplish hollows beneath her eyes and moist pimples on her chin. She didn’t like her husband to see her this way.

  She had prepared an answer: ‘When they came to the door. When the guards came to the door.’

  That wasn’t quite right. She felt now that the knowledge had begun long before – a spindly thing unfurling itself patiently in the dark. But there were things, Anne had learned, that could not be botched into narrative.

  They had honeymooned in Thailand. There were street children selling flowers. It wasn’t the way he looked at them. It was the way he didn’t look. It was the way his hands moved, stroking the napkin.

  ‘Those girls...’ he said. ‘They brush up against you when they ask for change. Today, one of them slid her hand into my trouser pocket. They’re not as innocent as they seem.’

  They were in an expensive restaurant that Anne had booked months before the wedding. At the centre of the table there was a glass bowl filled with liquid of a luminous artificial blue. A pink flower floated on the bright surface. It moved slowly around the perimeter of the bowl. At least that is what she remembered, but how could it have been moving? What could have made it move? She had gazed into the fleshy pink folds, and not at him.

  ‘Look,’ Anne had said, ‘isn’t it strange that the flower hasn’t been dyed blue? It hasn’t sucked up the blue water and turned blue...’ She raised her eyes to his, and he looked away.

  The judge was waiting for her answer. She took a sip of water. This gave her a moment to summon her voice. She looked at the judge, and lowered her eyes.

  ‘When they came to the door. When the guards came to the door.’

  *

  They had come on a Sunday morning. She had opened the door to find three men standing in the porch. Two of them wore guard’s uniforms, the other wore jeans. He showed her some papers that meant they could search her house. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘oh.’

  She opened the door and stood aside. Her husband came down the stairs, rubbing his jaw. ‘What?’ he had said. ‘Anne, what’s all this?’

  While they searched the kitchen, she knelt over the toilet and heaved up her morning tea. When they began to mount the stairs, she followed. They entered the nursery. She woke the baby, took her down to the kitchen and nursed her, though it was only an hour since the last feed. While the men moved around the house, Anne felt her pulse steady to the rhythm of the suckling infant. She sat at the kitchen table and rocked the child the way she had in the hours after giving birth, when it still felt as though they were the one body, painfully sundered. She wanted to put the baby back inside where it could not be looked at.

  Her husband was standing at the foot of the stairs, his face to the wall. The morning light was bearing in on him through the coloured glass door, casting yellow and blue and crimson shapes over his hair, his back, his flannel pyjama pants.

  She heard the men enter her bedroom. She heard their heavy shoes through the ceiling. Shoes weren’t allowed upstairs, not since the new carpet had been put in. She thought, They’ll find the handcuffs. They had never even used them. Handcuffs with pink fluff on them and a safety release catch. She had bought them at an Ann Summers party. Her friends had all bought vibrators and beads and other things she wouldn’t even know what to do with.

  The guards sat them both down in the living room, where there were framed pictures of their wedding day, and their parents’ wedding days, and a dull oil painting of a village church that her grandfather had left to her in his will.

  The man in jeans was older than the others. He had a short beard and creases around his eyes. He told her his name and said he was a detective. The younger ones watched as he leaned towards her, his hands still, the palms softly touching.

  ‘Your husband has something to tell you.’

  She played with her rings: her wedding ring, a neat gold band, and the eternity ring her husband had bought for her after the baby was born. ‘You deserve it,’ he had said, ‘after all that work.’ There were three stones in it. One was pink, one was blue, and one was a small, uneven pearl with a soapy yellow streak. She ran the pad of a finger over the two sharp bumps and the smoother swell of the pearl. She tried to remember the names of the coloured stones. Her husband was sitting on the couch. He was in handcuffs, and Anne thought again of the fluffy ones upstairs.

  While her husband spoke, the detective frowned a little, watching her face. He wanted to see if she knew. The younger guards looked at their laps. She could feel the shock play out on her face. She didn’t cry. She remembered thinking, I should cry now.

  ‘How young?’ she had said, glancing at the door. The baby was asleep now in her pram in the hallway. The detective sucked in his lower lip, and swallowed. He looked at one of the guards, and the young man looked at her, and she knew she had said the right thing.

  *

  They had confiscated his laptop, and hers. Then they had taken the handcuffs off. After they left, Anne did some ironing, the baby slept, and her husband sat at the kitchen table. Anne wanted to ask him why the handcuffs had been taken off, why he hadn’t been taken away, but she preferred the silence. She ironed things she had never ironed before. She ironed baby blankets and socks. She wanted to stay in this quietness, with the doors closed, the little sleep sounds of her baby and the soft hiss of the steam.

  When the baby woke up Anne said, ‘We need to get the shopping.’ They went to Superquinn. When they spoke it was to discuss whether to buy penne or spaghetti. As it was eleven cents cheaper, they chose spaghetti. Her husband was trembling as he took the packet off the shelf. He steadied himself against the trolley, shut his eyes and breathed out. Watching him, Anne had thought – had she really? – Now he will have to make amends. Now he will have to be a better husband. Now I am all he has. The baby sat upright in the trolley and blew spit bubbles.

  Nothing had happened for a few weeks. Then he was called in for questioning, and then she was questioned. She asked to see the images they had found. The detective said, ‘I don’t think you should, love. I really don’t think you should. These are things you can’t unsee. But leave him. Take your daughter and go. A leopard doesn’t change his spots. Trust me. I’ve been working on these cases for ten years...’

  He was going to say something more, but instead he sighed.

  *

  ‘Speak up, please,’ said the judge.

  ‘When the... When the guards came to the door. To raid the house. That’s when I first knew, I suppose.’

  *

  They taped the interviews
. Anne sat in the room facing the detective, who had seen those things her husband looked at. Anne said she knew nothing, understood nothing. When she had no answer, she said nothing. The detective’s eyes were disconcerting, so she stared at the wall behind him. There was a row of empty shelves and a door with a combination lock. Beyond it was the room where all the evidence was filed. She thought of all those crimes packed together as data – flat disks, and papers, and memory sticks, and little Dictaphone tapes with voices on them. She wondered what colour the walls were in there, and whether there were windows.

  *

  Before it hit the papers, she had spent a weekend in her parents’ house in Wicklow.

  ‘Something bad has happened,’ she said, ‘that I need to tell you about.’

  The baby was in the other room, in an electric swing that played Mozart in slow, robotic notes. There was a remote control for it, and when the button was pressed the swing clacked back and forth for ten minutes, the music played, and the baby was quiet.

  Her father blinked and said nothing. Her mother spoke slowly, her voice a high, brittle vibration.

  ‘You’re not going back there. You’re not taking that child back to that house.’

  ‘I’ve had legal advice,’ said Anne evenly. ‘I have to stay in the house to keep my legal right to it. Otherwise I might lose the house.’

  ‘The house?’ shrieked her mother. ‘The house, Anne?’

  *

  After the police interviews, nothing happened for a while. Then journalists started to phone, and they had to change their number. Some famous men had been caught as part of the same investigation. It was mostly their names in the paper, but one article gave a list of all the men, and Sophie from two doors up called in with biscuits and red eyes. ‘Did you not know, Anne?’ she said. ‘Did you not even suspect?’ Some of the neighbours stopped letting their children play on the street. It took a while to go to court, and when it did, and he wasn’t locked up, Sophie said that it couldn’t have been so bad, what they found. He was registered as a sex offender, so they couldn’t holiday in New York as planned.