by Claire Allan
he was sick and I did. And when I did, I showed him compas-
sion. I showed him I loved him. I showed him I forgave him.’
Her words are fast, tripping over one another. She’s spiralling
now. She must realise how ridiculous she’s being. She must
realise that she can’t get away from this, no matter her threats
or her plans.
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‘That’s the greatest gift you can give someone, you know.
Forgiveness. It’s what people deserve, when they’re dying. Even
the bad people. The people who make mistakes. They deserve
to die in peace. I gave him that. I let him know. I let him know
he was forgiven.’
‘What did you ever have to forgive him for?’ Heidi snorts.
‘You barely even knew him. You stayed away for so long . . .’
She says the words and time slows. I see the look on Kathleen’s
face. I see it and I wonder how I ever missed it.
Was I so far in denial of my own pain that I couldn’t see it
written all over someone else’s face? I’d missed it with Heidi
. . . and now . . .
Kathleen pales, struggles to compose her face again. She
knows she’s said too much. She’s flustered. Her mouth opens
and closes but she isn’t saying anything.
‘Oh my God . . .’ is all I can say and she flashes me a look.
A look that pleads with me not to say any more. If we don’t
say it out loud it isn’t real.
A small cry comes from upstairs. Lily must be wakening. I
see the panic on Heidi’s face.
‘I need to get to Lily,’ she says. ‘She’s crying.’
Kathleen looks at her. Steps to one side.
‘You can go,’ she says, ‘but you’re not taking your bag with
you.’
‘Why can’t I bring my bag?’ Heidi asks. ‘Lily might need
changed.’
‘Then take what you need from it up to her. You’re not
taking your bag. Do you think I’d risk you calling the police?’
‘I want to look after my daughter,’ Heidi says, but she doesn’t
argue further.
She simply pulls out a nappy and wipes from her bag and,
with a tilt of her head that seems to ask if I’m okay with her
going, she heads towards the stairs.
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I nod at her. I’m quite looking forward to getting Kathleen on my own, although my stomach is churning now. How many
people did he hurt? How many lives did he destroy?
How many people had he condemned to live with a life of
shame, and self-blame and fucked-up relationships, mental and
emotional scars, a fear of intimacy? Nightmares and self-
medicating, distrust and hurt.
He has left innocent people, innocent girls, broken and sullied
in his wake.
I don’t want to be ashamed or scared any more. It has gone
on too long. This has to stop. Kathleen needs to know it has
to stop.
She is pacing the room now. Agitated. For all her bluff and
blunder she knows that she can’t really expect to walk away
from this.
I look at her, how she looks older than her years. How any
vibrancy I remember in her from my childhood is long gone
and I wonder how I never noticed it before. It’s enough to
make tears spring to my eyes once again.
‘Kathleen,’ I say, my voice soft.
She keeps walking.
‘Kathleen,’ I say, a little louder this time.
She looks at me, her eyes filled with fear. I take her by the
wrists, forcing her to stop pacing, forcing her to look me in
the eye.
‘Did he do this to you, too? When you were small? You can
tell me, you know. You can tell, Heidi. You don’t have to protect
him any more.’
Her eyes widen and she pulls her arms sharply away from
me before raising her hand and slapping me squarely across my
right cheek with a force so strong I stumble.
‘Don’t you ever open your filthy mouth to say that again,’
she hisses. ‘How dare you!’
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I put my hand to my cheek, feel the heat as blood rushes to my skin, colouring my face. It stings, but not as much as her
words.
‘I’m only trying to help. If the police know, they’ll understand.
They’ll help.’
‘You can help by keeping your twisted lies to yourself. I don’t
know where we went wrong with you, Ciara, but if there is
any deviant in this family it’s you! I don’t know how you did
it,’ she spits at me, ‘you and that vindictive bitch upstairs. You want everyone to be as sordid and sick as you? Well, I’m sorry,
you’re wrong. He never touched me. It was a mercy killing,
because I loved him. You couldn’t possibly understand. You have
never loved anyone but yourself.’
She is screaming and I can see her come at me again. She’s
small, no more than five foot four at most but she is strong
and before I know it, I’m being pushed backwards, losing my
footing and slipping, my head banging off the hard wood floor
so hard that I bite my tongue. I taste the metallic tang of blood
in my mouth, try to scramble backwards to get away or get to
my feet or just to shield myself from her.
She pulls a book from the bookcase, a thick, heavy hardback,
and throws it at me. The sharp edges of the spine hit me right
in the stomach, making me retch, the effort sending blood
spraying from my mouth on the floor. I can’t speak as I curl
up and feel another book land and another . . . and another.
And all the while Kathleen is ranting. No, she’s not ranting,
she’s praying. The Hail Mary over and over again.
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
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Chapter Seventy-Two
Heidi
Now
I’m shaking as I feed Lily, finding no comfort at all from the
soft warmth of her body.
Can she really make the police believe her? Can she really
make it look like Ciara and I could have been behind it all?
That we are horrible people? Maybe, I think, with a sinking
sensation, we are horrible people. Maybe all those thoughts that
come to me in the middle of the night – which have come to
me in the middle of the night ever since the first time he hurt
me – maybe they represent the truth?
I close my eyes, hold my daughter close to me. Think about
her innocence. No, I was just a child. As innocent as Lily is now.
The sound of shouting downstairs jolts me back into my
reality. Then the sound of a thud, and another and another. I
can hear Kathleen’s voice, raised, ranting. But I can’t hear Ciara.
A shiver runs through me as I lay Lily gently back on the bed,
her eyes now heavy with sleep, her mouth milky.
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As carefully as I can, I tiptoe out of my room, avoiding that squeaky floorboard, listening to what is happening downstairs.
I still don’t hear Ciara. Just Kathleen ranting, punctuated by
thuds as if she’s throwing something. I peer over the bannister,
down into the hall. The living room is open and with another
thud, I see one of Joe’s precious books hit the floor – flung
through the door. I look down to see a hand, an arm, prone
on the floor as if someone is trying to crawl out of the living
room to safety.
Ciara, I think as I start to shake. I have to help Ciara. I need
to get help, but I have to think of Lily. I’ve no phone. I can’t
call the police except . . . I remember the phone in Joe’s room.
He barely used it but it was there ‘for emergencies’.
I’d arranged to have it disconnected, but I can’t remember
when. It might still be in service.
I pray that it’s still in service.
Back in that room – his room – I make my way gingerly to
the chest of drawers, where the cheap cordless handset blinks
at me from its cradle.
I pick it up and press the call button and I pray, as hard as
I can, that the line will still be active.
At the sound of the dialling tone I find myself fighting the
urge to fall to my knees. Shaking, the numbers on the handset
blurring in front of my eyes, I dial 999.
Help is coming.
Help will be here.
I just pray it’s on time.
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Chapter Seventy-Three
Heidi
Now
I will never take this for granted. I will never not appreciate
the strong man who is lying by my side. I will never complain
(well not much) when Lily wakes in the night needing a feed,
or a change or just a cuddle. I will never complain about the
jammy handprints she has left on the carpet, or the times she
manages to make such a mess of herself that a bath for us both
is the only way to clean up.
I won’t complain about teething. I won’t complain about
Alex sleeping on while I feed our baby and revel in her pure-
ness.
I will enjoy every moment, because this is my second chance.
This is my chance to experience the childhood I should’ve had
back then. The childhood he stole from me.
‘You’ll have to be careful not to spoil her,’ Ciara said the last
time we met.
I’d laughed, especially as Ciara, who declares herself to be
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the least maternal person in Christendom, had brought a teddy bear with her that was at least the same size, if not bigger, than Lily herself.
Ciara and me? Well, we’re not best friends or anything. But
we’re trying. She spent five days in hospital after the attack.
Kathleen had managed to break two of her ribs, puncture a
lung. Along with the books, Kathleen had kicked her in the
stomach several times. There were concerns about internal
bleeding, but thankfully she was fine. She is making a good
recovery, physically. And mentally, she’s getting there. With the
help of Stella, of course.
And I’m trying, too. Because we both know what it’s like to
have been hurt so badly. We carry the same emotional scars.
We’re getting counselling. Going to support groups. Trying to
meet once a week, for a stroll along the quay and then a coffee.
It’s been four months since Joe died and the winter is giving
way into spring. There’s a lightness to the air that I don’t think is entirely down to the change in the season.
Sometimes Stella comes to join us. Sometimes Alex meets
us when he has finished work. He’s doing okay. He still feels
some guilt about not calling for help for Joe, even though the
doctors and the police have told him there was nothing that
could’ve been done for him at that stage anyway.
Kathleen had done a good enough job to send Joe almost
all the way to hell – just not quite far enough. She tried, of
course, even after the assault, to pin the blame for Joe’s death
on Ciara and me, and Alex, too. Even though she knew she
was facing jail anyway for the assault on Ciara, she still seemed
determined to punish us.
But she underestimated the power of a guilty conscience.
Poor Dr Sweeney – living with the secret got too much for
him, especially when he saw Ciara, bloodied and bruised in her
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to help in his own way, but he’ll pay the price for covering up for Kathleen, who seems not one bit sorry for the position she
put him in.
Of course Kathleen had also underestimated the value of our
testimony. Ciara and I had cried our way through several boxes
of tissues as we had outlined the years of abuse we had suffered
to the police. Ciara told me how she thought we might not
be Joe’s only victims. That she thought Kathleen may have been
targeted, too – but when the police asked her about it, she
reacted with the same anger she had shown Ciara.
Marie was devastated, of course. I believe she genuinely knew
nothing of her husband’s perversions. She has finally taken her
wedding ring off and reverted to her maiden name.
As for Joe, his remains were exhumed and he was buried,
alone, in a plot further down the cemetery. I’m not even sure
where his plot is, but that’s fine by me. I have no desire to visit his grave. I think he’ll have a lonely rest there.
Me? I’m determined to move on. Ciara is, too. The house is
on the market. There have been a few offers. Young families
looking for a place to build happy memories. It will be gone
soon and I hope all those painful memories with it.
The rest of our life awaits. Alex stirs in his sleep, turns over
and wraps his arm around me. I feel secure. I feel loved.
I feel free.
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Epilogue
Kathleen
Then
I didn’t like seeing my big brother look so weak. So pathetic.
So scared. It was so unlike Joe. Normally he was this larger
than life character, full of self-confidence. Sometimes he was
too full of self-confidence, but we all had our faults.
Joe had always had a swagger about him. A sense that he was
destined for bigger things. The first in our family to stay on at
school past sixteen, he’d been determined to rise above the
fairly basic working-class lifestyle he’d grown up with.
Joe knew things – all the facts in the world. I could listen
to him tell me stories about far-flung countries and exotic
insects,
the great battles in the history, the Greek myths; his
knowledge seemed endless.
Being nine years younger than him, I had hero-worshipped
him. Loved it when he took me out on the back of his bike
to meet his friends. He never saw me as the annoying little
sister – not the way my friends’ brothers saw them. And he
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always bought me sweets. A quarter of cola cubes in a white paper bag. I just had to give him the first one, to make sure it
wasn’t poisoned, he’d say.
Now he was in pain, pale, and his mood was dipping day by
day.
‘I’m scared,’ he’d told me as I sat holding his hand at his
bedside.
‘What of?’ I asked. ‘We’ll take care of you, I promise.’
‘I’m not scared of dying,’ he said, ‘or even the pain that might
come with it. I’m scared of what happens after.’
It wasn’t something I wanted to think about too much. I
think I was still in denial about his illness. Just that day before I’d wept in Dr Sweeney’s office, told him the thought of seeing
Joe suffer and die was almost more than I could take. I couldn’t
even think about after.
‘We’ll take care of you then, too,’ I said, gently rubbing his
hand. ‘We’ll do right by you.’ I couldn’t hold back my tears,
but nor could Joe.
‘I don’t mean like that,’ he’d said. ‘I mean the afterlife. Where
I go. My soul, you know.’
‘You’re a good man,’ I told him.
‘I wasn’t always,’ he said and his eyes flickered from mine.
‘You repented and you stopped,’ I said. ‘That’s what matters.’
I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t want to have this conversation.
There are things I had buried deep in the recesses of my mind
and Joe’s sins, those awful ones, were one of them.
‘I could get Father Brennan for you, to hear a confession. It
might put your mind at rest a little.’
‘I think my sins are beyond what Father Brennan could fix
for me,’ he said sadly.
‘But if I could forgive you . . .’ I said, my voice faltering.
‘The others haven’t,’ he said.
‘Others?’
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I felt a shiver run through me. I knew of one. Heidi. I’d suspected something when I stayed at the house. I’d confronted
him and he’d promised it that he would stop. He promised me